


Intro to Lifespan Development

by Contransulations



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, Friendship, Romance, Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 48,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Contransulations/pseuds/Contransulations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the study group's senior year, this rewrites some events of S4, focusing on how Britta comes to terms with turning 30 and her renewed need for social activism, and Jeff facing major changes in his life (including his mother's remarriage and meeting his brother). They re-start their former secret relationship and gradually start to depend on each other for more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Modern Mixology

**Author's Note:**

> This is a multi-chapter fic that begins in July 2012 in Greendale.

“Another Negroni.” 

“You got it,” Britta smiled, as she took the empty Old Fashioned glass, and wiped the condensation from the dark wood bar with a black napkin from the caddy. “Another for you?” she asked the young man’s companion. It was clearly a first date situation and looked like it was going well. The girl was still working on a French 75, and though it wasn’t great for her take-home tips, Britta approved of this girl nursing her drink while she was still sizing up this guy.

Britta turned to put the glass in the dish bin, grabbed a cocktail shaker and filled it with ice. She poured in the Perry’s Tot, Campari and vermouth with muscle memory, and when she grasped for a clean glass, caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. With her image set off against the background of the softly glowing bar, with its white tile walls and warm maple plank ceiling, lit by filament bulbs and white votives in mason jars throughout the room, Britta was amused and pleased at the abrupt turn life had taken in the past couple of months. She delivered the cocktail, and walked down the bar to uncork a bottle of red for one of the seated tables, taking the moment as the removed the cork from the corkscrew to pat herself on the back for finally getting out of that bistro from hell where she was waitressing in the spring. The one where the hostess, Dana, was so awful to customers, that they took it out on the other staff and barely ever tipped properly. It was definitely just a paycheck, and no one loved working there.

When Juniper Hill opened, Britta drove by and on the spur of the moment, walked in to apply as a bartender, slightly exaggerating her experience (perhaps fabricating a stint manning the bar at The Greendale Pub at school). The place was amazing- local food, interesting drinks, a non-embarrassing ‘uniform’- and Britta and the owner/manager Nate hit it off right away. She was hired on her birthday, and Nate had gone to pour her a vodka to celebrate hiring her. She was sure he thought she was kidding when she shared the significance of the day to her, so she showed him her driver’s license – “June 20, 1982” – and he got so excited he gave her an impromptu hug. She was almost a little teary on the drive back to her apartment that day. It was an odd feeling; she couldn’t shake it for days.

Just a couple months ago, Britta had been expelled from her third rate community college, had failed a remedial biology class, and was barely making rent on her studio. It was a pretty horrible start to her thirties. The whole point of selling out her social activism work and going to college was supposed to be so that she could turn thirty with some kind of stability in her life. Now at least she passed bio (with an impressive A-), was getting to testify soon at the competency evaluation for the man responsible for her unjust expulsion, and she was feeling so positive lately that she was motivated as she’d not been since her early Anarchist days. Things were looking up, and Britta had confidence in her plan for the future, if she could only keep to it for the next year.

The pay was at this place was fantastic- she had only been working there five weeks and already earned enough to finally buy a real cell phone and sock away money for a holiday getaway. It was one of the most upscale bar/restaurants in town with a focus on organic, local food and whiskey drinks, and was even becoming a destination in the area. The hours…were fine for summer. Bars closed at 2 am, and she worked five nights a week, so her hours were odd, but it left her free in the daytime. She was already exhausted whenever she tried to get up before noon, so she tried not to think about going back to Greendale next month for her morning classes on barely six hours sleep a night.

Sunday nights were relatively slow, but Britta welcomed the change of pace from the weekend rush that started Thursdays. She let her mind wander to what she was going to do with her day off tomorrow. How many pages of chapter 7 did she have left to get through, and could she do it while she did laundry? Probably. If she didn’t stop to take notes. That would give her a great start finishing chapter 8 before the weekend, and she could do her response questions Saturday afternoon. That would work. Her musings were interrupted by new customers. Two Moscow Mules for the bar. Caps off the Fever-Tree. Squeeze the limes. Ice. Vodka. Pour in the ginger beer. “Do you want to start a tab?” she asked sweetly to the two guys. “No, here you go,” the tall one replied, handing her a fifty. He only would take a twenty back. This gig was _the best_. “What’s your name,” he asked. “I’m Joe, this is my buddy Mike.”

“I’m Britta- nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mike chimed in. “This is a nice pour.”

She couldn’t tell if they were flirting or making conversation. “Of course.”

“We were just playing baseball- do you play sports, Britta?” Joe asked.

They were definitely trying to flirt, but it was harmless and part of the gig. “I can’t say I have. More of a watcher.”

“You can watch us sometime,” Joe continued, as he swigged his Mule. “We play for our company, Comcast, we’re over on the field down Market Street.”

“Yeah?” Britta played along. “Oh, excuse me, I need to step into the kitchen for a sec.” She really did, grabbing a gnocchi entrée for a young woman next to the couple on their date.   The dish was hot- she was holding it with a double linen napkin- so she was concentrating on setting it down quickly and walked completely past a new patron seated directly in front of the kitchen door. “Macallan. Neat.”

“Sure,” automatically. “Oh, hey! What are you doing here, Jeff?”

“You invited me, remember?” he teased. “Your facebook status said to drop by and visit you at work. Besides, I wanted a drink. And I haven’t seen you in weeks.” Her eyes never left him as she uncorked the bottle. It was true, she had barely seen anyone from the study group since she started this job and her online class. He looked great. His stubble was more prominent than ever; though it could make other guys look tired and lazy, it worked on him. She thought scruff was totally sexy, even if she personally preferred to make out with clean shaven guys. It made Jeff look more mature, more put together. And though she wasn’t sure, she thought she spied some gray towards the bottom of his chin, which she found herself inextricably turned on by. He was wearing one of her favorite shirts- the dark blue button down that brought out his eyes, and it was getting tight around his biceps. She wasn’t sure why he was there though. That was a facebook update from last week, and more of a humblebrag about her new gig. They hadn’t just hung out without other people in months. She hadn’t noticed until just then. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, really. I wanted to see you. Say hello. Make sure everything’s okay with you. Catch up.”

As Britta set down his Scotch, that’s when her eye caught the book next to Jeff’s hand. “What’s that? You’re doing summer reading? Do you need me to read to you?”

“Haha. I read. I can’t read in my apartment though. It’s way too quiet. It’s funny, I think I got really used to studying with the group where there are so many distractions all the time- I can’t get anything done when I don’t have any.” Jeff’s left hand was on top of the book, so Britta couldn’t make it out. She gently stroked her fingers over the back of his hand, teasing him to give up the title.    Jeff smiled and grabbed it, “Geez, eager, are we?”

“ _As You Like It_?” Britta exclaimed, genuinely surprised. “Shakespeare?”

He couldn’t decide if he was amused or hurt. “Why are you so shocked? I was a lawyer, I can read.”

“I know. I mean, I’ve never, and I mean, never, seen you with a book that wasn’t a textbook before. Are you really bored this summer?” Kelly, one of the table waitresses, came up to Britta’s left side, “Old Fashioned, White Rascal and a Del Norte.”

“Thanks Kel. Jeff- you want food? It’s good here,” handing him a menu, and turning to fill the order. The truth was, Jeff was bored this summer. It had only been a few weeks since biology ended and summer school was out at Greendale, but he wasn’t enjoying his free time as much as he thought he would. And that really bothered him, because he knew that, going into his senior year, this would hopefully be his last free summer for a long time. Worse yet, his mom had retired after 40 years of night nursing, and was asking, no, practically begging, to get together for dinner. He couldn’t put her off for much longer. If she had too much free time on her hands, he didn’t want to be her project now. Not that Jeff didn’t have things to do. Though he had kept it a secret so far, he had enrolled in another online class to stay on schedule to graduate early, and it was a lot of work. They were reading a new play every week and a half or so. And he had something else he’d been keeping to himself since bio ended.

After everything that had happened in the last year, he’d decided that he was a mature adult and he had the right to confront his father and tell William Winger what a disappointment he was as a human being. That in fact, this was something he should do, for his mother’s sake, too, and for closure. There was a big chapter in Jeff’s life that was coming to a close, and he should tie up all the loose ends, make a clean break when he graduated and re-started his law career. Besides, he figured, he only had to see this guy once, and then he could be truly done with him. What actually happened knocked him sideways, and Jeff started to have strange dreams that would wake him up at night. Were they dreams? It was more that he would dream a long-forgotten memory of spending time with his father, doing innocuous things. He’d be in the passenger seat of a sedan with his father in the driver’s seat and remember they were on their way home from buying milk or going to school in the morning. Things like that. Totally harmless, but he was shaken up by them. Was there something else he had forgotten? Why was he remembering these now? And what prompted these? The unpleasant discovery that William Winger was living just half an hour away, and there was a William Winger, Jr. who had to be his half-brother. Jeff alternated between clicking off the Google search almost immediately after he would type it, and more often when he looked late at night, searching the Junior’s face for any resemblance to himself. Jeff sipped his scotch. “You know what you want?” 

Jeff looked up, and snapped back to the present. “Oh, you startled me. No, I ate.”

“Come on, it’s great,” and with that, Britta wouldn’t take no for an answer, snapping the small bar menu away and leaving him for the kitchen. Jeff shouted after her, “Where are you going,” to no avail. He shook his head and opened his book. It was good to see her. She looked happy for the first time in ages; in control. And really good. Her blonde hair was pulled back on one side with a black barrette. She was wearing her usual heeled black boots with what looked like a new pair of dark denim cigarette boyfriend jeans that looked comfortably loose slung around her waist but tight in the rear. The Juniper Hill ‘uniform’ was a slate gray v-neck t-shirt, and Britta wore some new necklace he’d never seen before on a delicate gold chain that fell just over and in between her breasts. Jeff had tried not to stare at it. But maybe he’d ask her about it later and get a closer look. How had he not been paying attention to how attractive Britta was lately?

As if on cue, Britta swept back in and put a plate to the side of him. “They’re blistered shishito peppers with sea salt. My favorite thing right now.” They looked like little jalepeno peppers.

“Are they hot?” It seemed like a dumb question, but Britta was attracted to some crazy things, and burning her mouth off and calling it her ‘favorite thing’ wouldn’t be too odd.

“I’m being honest- most of them are not. Not really. Every once in awhile, you get one that makes you want to cry a little and bite your tongue off, but you push through it.” Jeff grabbed a crispy pepper by the stem and holds it up to Britta, as if to feed it to her. She automatically found herself leaning in, before she bolted upright, remembering that she was at work and couldn’t be having her ex feeding her food she’s just basically stolen from the friendly kitchen.

Jeff sensed this and tried to change the subject, “Are you working until two?”

“Well, yeah,” she replied, but not wanting to talk about herself just yet, diverted back to Jeff. “So- back to you. What’s with this?” gesturing to the book.

“Well, I’m only telling you this, so it’s not consumption for the group yet.”

More interesting. Britta leaned in and encouraged him to continue. “Ooh- okay.”

Jeff took a deep breath and smiled. “I also chose a major this summer.

“Stealing my thunder?” she jokingly chided him. That was nice. Preplanning was not exactly what Britta was expecting, especially from the king of blow-off classes. She let it settle in for a minute. “Wow. That’s great. What do lawyers undergrad in? I have no idea, actually? History? Business?”

“Um, sure. I settled on English. I figured I could get away with a lot of creative writing.” It was true, and his best grades had been in his composition classes, and a couple courses Greendale offered on the modern novel. By the time he started looking at what classes he’d need to graduate when he thought he wasn’t going to get into Bio last fall, and realized he could squeeze in enough credits by December if he did some online, English just made sense.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Britta responded, reading his mind. “Jeff Winger, English major. “

 He cut to the chase, “I’m taking a class online. ‘The Elizabethan Plays’ for this Renaissance literature credit. I think I can graduate early, and Greendale’s not really offering these classes anyway. It doesn’t make sense- it’s their schedule and their tracks, why _doesn’t_ ‘Scrabble Strategy’ count towards my requirements?”

 Finally! Someone Britta could share her newfound frustrations on this with! “I know, right? And they have a psych major and only one psych professor? It’s….”

 It occurred to Jeff this was an actual problem for her. “Are you gonna be able to get out of there on time?”

 She hesitated. She’d wait for a better moment to tell him. “Oh, me? Yeah. And that’s really great for you. I didn’t know you wanted to do that.”

 “Well, it makes sense. The sooner I can go back to being a lawyer, the better. I mean, that’s what I came back to Greendale to do. I can afford to not be working the full year, but barely, my savings would just cover it, and besides, if Alan’s forced me out of Hamish, I’m going to need to hustle a little to get some consulting work.”

 “And now you’re willingly taking summer school?” she smiles at him.

 Jeff takes another sip of scotch, looks into her eyes and says “My pride fell with my fortunes...” she looks impressed. “It’s from the play. Never mind.”

 “So this is definite? You’re definitely graduating in December?” Britta asks.

 “If I pass this class, and can finish the last few requirements this fall.” He started to believe it, having said it out loud. And having said it to her. He knew she was going to hold him to it.

 “Whoa. Well,” taking a bite of very hot pepper and trying to hide her face squinching, “That went by fast, right”

 “What did?” said Jeff, sipping his scotch and raising his eyebrow.

 “The last three years,” Britta replied, dropping the stem back onto the plate, and pouring herself a glass of water.

 “Definitely. Too fast.”

 “You’re going to miss us?” she asked. Jeff shrugged, trying to be nonchalant, but considered the question.

 “Yeah, but I’m not really going anywhere. I’ll still be in town. I’ll still see you.” He noticed a little hesitation in her eyes. “What?”

 “Hold on a sec, be right back.” Britta went down the bar to get the check for the first date couple, who have gotten very flirty, and to pour another Pinor Noir for the woman with the pasta. By the time she got back, she was bursting and couldn’t help but tell Jeff, “I’ve been taking online classes, too.”

 "You’re kidding me?” he really wasn’t sure.

 "No,” as her arms automatically crossed in defense.

 Jeff pressed her, “Really, you’re serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious, why would you say that?”

He wasn’t trying to upset her. “No reason, just surprised I guess. Why anyone would want to take more classes if they didn’t need to. They’re not cheap and it’s a lot more work than stuff at Greendale.”

Her arms were still crossed. “No kidding.”

 “Well, so why are you doing it? Don’t tell me you wanted to graduate early, too?” he asked, starting to wonder.

 “Not even on my radar. Just want to graduate with my psych major. Duncan’s not teaching classes I want on my transcript. And I need a statistics class, which I will take with Slater when pigs fall from the sky. When it rains pigs? Or whatever. Either. So no.”

Jeff was definitely curious now. “You’re taking statistics?”

“No, not right now.” Britta’s arms moved to her hips. “I’m taking Human Growth and Development? I have to take a stat this fall, and it’s making me a little nervous. And study for my GRE. I’m already having flashbacks of studying for my GED. And do my regular classes, and I have all these extra hours here, which are great, but it’s a lot. I’m trying not to think about it yet.

“Wow, so that’s a lot of information. You’re in a psych class right now?”

“Yeah,” she answered.

He was impressed. He was pretty convinced at the end of the Greendale semester that her bad experience “therapizing” the unthearapizable Abed would have turned her off psychology completely. “And you like it?”

 Britta opened up. “I love it. Oh, here’s something fun I learned last week. Some of the main features of newborns that makes their parents want to pick them up are their big eyes and large foreheads.”

 “Hey, mean!” Though Jeff had come to accept his large forehead, he was still sensitive about it.

 “Come on, it’s a compliment.”

 “Ow,” Jeff emphasized. “Wait, anyway, why are you worried about the GRE,” he asked, knowingly.

"Come on, Jeff, I’m 30 years old. I have to at least think about grad school. I’m just…” she trailed off.

“Just what?” he followed up, concernedly.

“Just getting worried that if I don’t do something else soon, than I’m really no better off than when I started at Greendale. And then what was the point?”

The rest of the night flew by, and soon it was closing time. Jeff actually got a little reading done, but spent whatever free time Britta had probing her about her plans for grad school. Turns out, she was looking at some programs in New York, including a pretty affordable CUNY school where she felt like she had a good shot at getting in. Jeff had never taken Britta’s time in New York seriously, but listening to her talk about the advantages of particular neighborhoods over others, places she missed, what friends were still in “the city,” and how much she already knew about where she wanted to apply, he realized there was still a lot he didn’t know about her. “I need a study break,” he goaded her. “Want to watch a movie?”

Britta laughed, “It’s pretty late. And I should check on Daniel.”

“Oh- who?” Jeff asked, trying to be nonchalant.

“Uh, my cat. The one with one eye you pick on constantly. Poor little guy hasn’t been eating since Walter died.”

“Okay, bleeding heart. Anyway, I meant tomorrow. Are you free?”

“Yeah, I’m off until Wednesday,” she said.

Jeff assumed she was in. “Good, text me when you wake up? We can meet at the mall?”

“Or we can study together? Like old times?” She was half-serious. As tempting as it was to have a ‘real’ day off, she worried about getting complacent about schoolwork. She was pulling an A in her class, and was determined to keep it for the remaining four weeks of the semester. If she wanted to get into grad school…

“Buzzkill. Okay, some studying, some actual summer not work. I really do need a day off. This must be what actual college is like.” He looked into her eyes, and she found herself nodding almost despite herself. Britta missed these interactions, and would be lying if she told herself she wasn’t intrigued by the offer. He continued, “So come over, and we’ll study a little, if you insist, and watch a movie. I’ll order Thai.” 

She half-wondered if Jeff meant anything else by movie. It used to be practically code between them for turning on Netflix, playfully fighting over what they’d watch, which led to making out, cowgirl on the couch, and her never being able to find her socks in the morning. It was summer after all. She was a college student. She was on the pill. He probably expected her to do impetuous things. And with their history…she wasn’t opposed to the idea of restarting her friendship with benefits. But she was getting ahead of herself. This was just hanging out with an old friend. God, was she feeling defensive or excited?

Britta hadn’t slept with anyone since she’d been boob-fucked in a blanket fort by Rick the Subway guy last semester. It was ridiculous. And before that, it was Jeff. This guy she really liked hanging out with, but drove her crazy disagreeing with her. Sometimes it had felt like he missed being a lawyer so much that he just loved getting arguments out of his system, and she always took the bait. There was a connection in that, but Jeff was still so closely guarded that they had never been able to have any deeper conversations. His lack of openness, even in their most intimate moments, had started to make her genuinely angry, especially when he freaked out when she left a toothbrush at his apartment, and weeks later let Chang full on move in with him. Not that she wanted that- they had totally been keeping it open. But she had started to realize she liked him better as a friend. It was hard to explain, but he was more than a casual hook-up and she had started to resent feeling like one, then going back to a somewhat healthier friendship during the day. It had lasted almost a year, and they never really talked about it, which was good. There was no drama. She looked up and her eye caught his mouth, his bottom lip, wet from where he’s just licked the last drop of scotch off it. Goddamnit. It would feel so good to just make out with him right now. “Allright, your place. Five o’clock?”

 

 


	2. The Psychology of Persuasion

Britta was running late. She didn’t even know how it happened, but she did manage to get her laundry and dishes done, and by the time she was out of the shower it was already 4:30 pm. It was close to six when she eased her white Pontiac into a spot someone was leaving just outside of Jeff’s apartment. Still, she took a moment to look in the rearview mirror and lightly apply some Spiced Rose lipstick mostly to her bottom lip, smacking it around, trying to make it look not too obvious that she was wearing makeup.  
  
Jeff answered almost immediately. “About time, Kevin Kline.”  
  
“Calm down,” she cut in over him, as she pulled a bottle of Pinot Noir from her shoulder bag. “ I brought wine.”  
  
“I thought we were gonna order Thai, I almost ordered without you, actually. I was giving you,” and he looked at his watch, “eight more minutes.” He took the wine and pointed it at her, “pineapple fried rice?”  
  
“And spring rolls?” she only half-asked, throwing her bag on the end of the sofa before going to join him in the kitchen. “Want me to open this?”  
  
“You can’t drink wine with Thai food,” he told her, as he handed back the bottle, and picked his cell phone off the counter to order.  
  
“Sure you can, and you’re talking to a bartender,” she reminded him. “Jeff, you can’t drink just Scotch your whole life. Expand your palette.” With that, she successfully found the Rabbit in the back of his kitchen tchotchke drawer, which was surprisingly neat for a bachelor. Then again, she was sure he had someone come in and clean the place for him on a regular basis.  
  
“I meant I’m sure I have beer in the fridge, and you’re wrong- anything other than Scotch and I’m downgrading. Hi- yeah, I’d like to place an order for delivery...” His voice trailed off as Britta grabbed two wine glasses and headed back to the living room. She flipped on the TV and moved Jeff’s laptop to the coffee table. “Twenty minutes,” Jeff said, as he sat down beside her and grabbed a glass of wine. “What’s with the shorts? Run out of clean clothes?” He was referring to the light green stripes on her shorts, which were much more feminine than her usual black or denim.  
  
“Today was laundry day. No- I mean, I did laundry today. It’s so hot out, I just grabbed these. I don’t get how even with it being 90 degrees outside, I still have to run my clothes through the dryer three times. It sucks. That’s the last time I do it until fall. Seriously.”  
  
“Well,” he hesitated momentarily, but couldn’t help himself. “Come over here and do it if you need it. I mean, it’s free. You might as well?” He was so close to doing something nice for her, but didn’t want it to come off weird, so he had to make it seem like he didn’t care if she did or she didn’t. Britta’s eyebrows noticeably raised. It was an uncharacteristic gesture, and one that made sense, but she didn’t want to seem over eager.  
  
“It’s not a big deal. And wouldn’t that be weird, like, who does that, kids? Your neighbors would probably get suspicious- some strange woman coming in to do her laundry?”  
  
His lawyer instinct to sell himself kicked in. “No way, it’s fine. I’m paying for it, I don’t even use it enough. Hang out here in the A/C while you’re doing your laundry instead of sweating to death. It’s not a big deal. Don’t make your life harder Britta.”  
  
“Allright, thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.” They both knew he’d won. “How’s the studying going?”  
  
“Fine,” he replied. “But I started before you got here, so can we start with Netflix and then study a little?”  
  
“Yeah, I kinda need that,” she admitted. He grabbed the Apple TV remote from the side table to his left.  
  
The screen came up and Jeff pulled up his queue. “What the hell?!” She looked at him, puzzled. “I didn’t add “Starship Troopers” or “Bedtime Stories” to my queue. This happens every week. Something’s wrong with this, don’t judge me!”  
  
“It’s fine,” she laughed. She knew positively that was not Jeff’s genre. “I just remembered- let’s do Hulu instead. There’s something I heard is really good.”  
  
“What?” he asked, cautiously, despite moving to switch applications.  
  
“It’s this show _Key and Peele_. It’s like _Saturday Night Live_ , or Dave Chapelle, and it’s these two African-American guys who use sketch comedy to explore modern racial injustice.” She was getting more excited as she was describing and remembering seeing the sketch her friend showed her.  
  
“Ok, fine, yes, but I’m only on board because Troy was telling me about this last week and it sounded a lot funnier.” Jeff smirked, and Britta kicked her shoes off, tucking her legs beneath her. The food arrived shortly thereafter, and two episodes turned into Britta rationalizing, “just one more, and then we’ll take a study break.” They did eventually, by which time they’d polished off the bottle, and Jeff was searching his kitchen for an appropriate refill. But after opening it, he filled their glasses, and retrieved his copy of _As You Like It_ from his bedroom.  
  
“Jeff?” Britta called after him.  
  
He ducked his head out and threw the play at her, meaning for her to catch it. She missed, but quickly picked it up and regained her train of thought. “I’m cold,” she whimpered.  
  
“Oh, do you want me to turn the air off?” he wondered. It was getting chilly with the central air, but he had only just noticed. Britta must be freezing though, with her short shorts and thin t-shirt, and she was tiny.  
  
“No…”she answered. He got exasperated with her for half a second… “It feels good. Bring a blanket?”  
  
“Yeah, sure.” He turned back into the bedroom and pulled a soft gray fleece from the back of his armchair, and pulled it over the both of them when he got back to the couch. Britta snuggled in next to him, her left ear pressed to his chest, and Jeff’s right arm wrapped around her. His fingers absentmindedly swept stray hairs from her ponytail back behind her ear over and over. They were both incredibly comfortable.  
  
The sun had set, and the only light in the room was coming from the television and a faint glow from the bedroom where Jeff had left on a bedside lamp. The freshly poured wine lay untouched. Britta began to fall asleep; she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t been so happily relaxed in ages. It occurred to her that she should start to make her way home; it was only a ten minute drive back to her studio, but the longer she let herself fall in and out of sleep, the harder it was going to be to rouse herself. Her eyelids were heavy; she knew when she opened them that she had been out for at least a few minutes. She’d missed an entire sketch. She turned her neck turned upward to see if Jeff was sleeping, too, but he wasn’t at all, though she thought his eyes looked tired. He was watching her. The television light illuminated his features.

As if it were completely natural, he moved his lips down to meet hers, and his left hand moved to her caress her right thigh. Britta was suddenly wide awake, or getting there. She moved her left arm out from under her and brought it up to Jeff’s neck. Taking this as a sign, Jeff opened his mouth and met Britta’s tongue. It was incredible that he recognized her taste after so long; he missed it. He swirled his tongue around hers, then alternated between deep kisses and sucking on her bottom lip, which he knew from experience she liked. Britta wanted their bodies closer. In two quick moves, she threw the blanket off, and positioned herself straddling Jeff’s lap, her arms around his shoulders and fingers in his hair, which was already half sticking up. He immediately moved to gently lick and kiss the sensitive spot beneath her right ear, and she let out a soft “hmmmmmmm.” She could feel herself getting wet, and it was clear Jeff would be ready for whatever happened next. She could feel Jeff getting harder and pulled her neck back so she could kiss him again. This time she moved her tongue gently around the front of Jeff’s teeth, sucking on his upper lip.  With his fingers on her back, he began gently moving her thumbs over the sides of her breasts. They couldn’t stay on the couch all night. Reluctantly, Jeff pulled away and with his forehead on hers asked, “bedroom?”  
  
“Yes,” she agreed. “Just give me a minute.” She wanted to collect herself in the bathroom. Britta knew if she stayed over, they were headed for sex, and she still hadn’t decided how she felt about picking it up so soon. Why was she not tired anymore? She peed, did a quick baby wipe wash, and improved brushing her teeth with some of Jeff’s toothpaste and her finger. It’s not like they hadn’t done this before, and it’s not like she didn’t want an orgasm tonight. She knew Jeff would give her one. She looked at herself in the mirror and bit her lip. “No,” she thought to herself, ”don’t give him the advantage…yet.”  
  
The bedroom was still dimly lit when Britta entered. Jeff was in dark blue boxers, and he greeted her with a kiss and one of his white t-shirts. “For sleeping? So you can be more comfortable.”  
  
“Thanks,” she said, taking the t-shirt, and throwing it over the armchair to free up her hands. Jeff had had a great body while they were sleeping together before, and now it was incredible. She never had thought of herself as someone who would be attracted to guys with muscles, and the idea of how physically strong he was now was similarly a new turn-on. Britta turned and removed her t-shirt. Jeff was behind her; he moved in to take the garment and lightly kiss the back of her neck. The t-shirt was lost to the floor as he kept kissing her and moved his hands to cup her breasts. Britta could feel the bulge of his erection against her lower back, and her own body was responding, demanding to be touched. She turned around and their mouths met. Jeff unhooked her bra as she stepped on the fabric around her own toes in a struggle to remove her socks. They grasped on to each other and fell into bed, still kissing. Jeff unbuttoned Britta’s shorts, and shimmied them down her legs, noticing her dark green toe nail polish. “You like everything dark?”  
  
“You have to talk so much?” she teased back.  
  
He stopped for a moment and gazed up at her. “You’re really beautiful.” And he took her right ankle in his hand and kissed it, then kissed up her calf, her knee, her inner thigh, and stopped at her black thong. He placed his middle and index fingers under the fabric and looked up at her, questioning.  
  
“Not tonight,” she told him. “Not yet.” With that, Britta gripped him by his right shoulder and pulled him up to her mouth, giving him firm kisses he eagerly reciprocated. Memories of the dozens of satisfying nights they’d spent together came flooding back to Britta. Jeff was surprisingly attentive, and always made sure she came. They had great sex and they knew it. Britta reached down and cupped him over his boxer shorts, while Jeff took her nipple into his mouth. She was going to have to throw this thong out. The more he sucked, the more she was getting soaked. She put more pressure on him, moving her hand up and down, and heard Jeff moan, “Britta.” She was usually louder than he was in bed, and she enjoyed hearing him lose control and making noises. Jeff moved his attentions to her other nipple, nosing it, licking circles around it, sucking it, while gently tweaking the other between two fingers. Britta wasn’t sure how much more she could take without having him inside her. She hadn’t even brought extra protection, though she was fairly sure Jeff had some in his bedside table. That’s where they used to keep a generous stash. Finally, she reached her limit of teasing, and with some gentle goading, flipped them so Jeff was now on the bottom, on his side of the bed. She settled herself between his legs and slipped her index finger beneath the waistband of his boxers, pulling back to reveal his erection. She released him with her other hand, gripping him firmly and licking a circle around the tip before using both hands to get the boxers off. Britta wasn't going to sleep with him tonight, but as she wordlessly took him into her mouth, made a mental note to stop at Walgreens the next day for a box of Trojans. She had a feeling she and Jeff would be busy the rest of the summer falling into old habits. 

* * *

  
Jeff woke first the next morning. He propped himself on his right side and watched Britta sleeping. Her brow was furrowed and she had a little frown on her face, but he thought she looked adorable, like she was working really hard at sleeping. It only then hit him what had happened the night before. He gently kissed her forehead and she mumbled in her sleep, burrowing more deeply into the sheets. He did have a very comfortable bed. Jeff decided to make coffee. Christ, it was almost noon. It made sense- they’d been drinking…and they were up pretty late. He opened his dresser drawer as quietly as possible to grab a clean pair of boxer shorts, running sweats and t-shirt. He figured he’d shower and dress later. En route to the kitchen he brushed his teeth and refused to look at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t ashamed of what had happened; he didn’t want to ruin it. The smell of brewing coffee and the loss of the warm body in bed next to her had woken Britta up. She took time to stretch out.  
  
“Hey, sleepy.” Jeff greeted her. He poured her a cup, and reached into the fridge for milk for her.  
  
“Hey you, too.” She eagerly took the cup and inhaled deeply. “My face kinda hurts. I forgot about beard burn.”  
  
He smiled though he tried to look offended, “Hey, I condition this. This is premium beard oil; that's why it smells so good, too.” She was glad he was smiling. There was a brief silence. “Hungry?”  
  
“Yes, actually. Do you have any food?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he admitted, opening the fridge. “Yogurt? Eggs? Omelette? I have cheese.”  
  
“Do you have toast?”  
  
He looked again to check, then glanced at the countertop. “No, sorry. I have to go grocery shopping. We can order something? It’s kinda late.”  
  
“Oh,” she hadn’t realized. “Do you have plans?”  
  
“No, just, we could order a pizza instead. Lunch food. Brunch?” He is uncharacteristically non-assertive. “Wow, we didn’t study at all yesterday, did we?”  
  
“I would not call that studying,” Britta joked back.  
  
Jeff got more serious. He moved closer. “Do you want to study again sometime?”  
  
“I like being your study partner,” Britta continued the analogy.  
  
“Well, good,” he said, slightly relieved. “Besides, I think I owe you some notes…or something.”  
  
“I know you’re good for it.”  
  
“Tomorrow night?”  
  
She couldn’t. “I’m working. I don’t have off until next Monday….during the day?”  
  
“This weekend? I’ll text you.” She could sense Jeff had something more to say, but she didn’t push him. She added milk to her coffee.  She was looking for a spoon when he asked, “Can I ask you a favor?”  
  
“Haha. That’s how it goes. First you fuck me and now you need a favor?”  
  
She was kidding, but Jeff moved beside her and whispered seductively in her ear, “First you have to let me fuck you.”  
  
“Is that your favor?” she whispered back.  
  
“No, it’s worse. My Mom wants to have dinner with me and I can’t go by myself. I think she’s bringing a date. It’s gonna be a trainwreck. I thought you’d like to watch.”  
  
“Oh, yeah,” she replied, enthusiastically. “Of course. Not that it’s gonna be a trainwreck, but I’m happy to go and support you.”  
  
“She may,” and he decided to get it all out at once, ”think we’re dating. Or, she thinks we’ve been dating a long time.”  
  
“What?” Britta couldn’t help her reaction. “How long?”  
  
“Don’t worry,” he jested. “She’ll know.”  
  
“How long?” Britta repeated.  
  
“Sort-of…” and he trailed off. He never really stopped to calculate. “Since the start of our second year? Whenever we started really,” he stopped and gestured having sex, “for the first time. But after Paintball. What’s that? Twoish years?” Britta shook her head. Not that she disagreed, but that she was disbelieving what she was hearing. “Happy anniversary, honey.” He said it as a joke, but he was hoping it hadn’t crossed a line with her. She was always adamant about valuing honesty.  
  
“Does your Mom even know you’re not a lawyer anymore?” she asked.  
  
“Well, yeah. I had to replace one band-aid with another. That’s when I got a ‘steady girlfriend.’”  
  
“That was not what I was expecting!”  
  
“But you’ll do it?” he asked, hopeful.  
  
“We don’t have any kids, do we?”  
  
“No, and she won’t shut up about it.”  
  
“Fine, I’ll do it. I want to meet Jeff Winger’s Mom. When is this happening?” She was never going to pass up that possibility.  
  
“Next Monday- is that okay?” She nodded in response. “You’re the best.”  
  
“I know. I should get going. I need to get home and shower and stuff…”  
  
“Are you sure?” he asked. “No eggs?”  
  
“No eggs, I’ll pick up a bag..something. I have food at home. Let me just grab my stuff.” She wanted to keep things from being awkward this morning. They could face each other when she felt more put together. “Okay, I’m going. “ Jeff met her at the door.  
  
“Last night was nice. Hanging out and everything. “  
  
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I’ll see you soon.”  
  
“See you soon.” He leaned and kissed her goodbye. 


	3. History of Ice Cream

Britta was halfway through her shift Sunday when she realized she didn’t have anything to wear to dinner the next night. Sure, she could have pulled something together, but as she ran through the options in her head, all the dresses in her closet seemed too tight or too ‘bleh’ to meet Jeff’s Mom in. Britta had no idea what this woman was like, but if she was anything like her son, she had impeccable style, loathe as she was to admit it. She pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and texted Annie. ‘Free tmrw? Riverside Mall? Need to buy clothes.’  
  
‘YES!!!’ The answer came back after only a few minutes. ‘Troy & Abed made me see Total Recall with them Fri & I need girl talk!’  
  
‘k-great. Meet you at the food court at 12?’  
  
‘see you there.’  
  
She didn’t get home until after 3 am, but made sure she got up early enough to shave her legs and tidy up her place. Britta and Annie met at the Chipotle and caught up on how their summers had been treating them over veggie soft tacos. Annie had officially decided to change her major to forensics, and lucked into a last-minute internship with the Sheriff’s Department when the previous candidate had backed out. She was spending 15 hours a week analyzing blood and urine samples for drugs and alcohol. Troy and Abed had been nagging her to test their urine to see if the system was accurate, and for a tour, and to bring home samples of supplies for props. So far, she’d successfully deflected all their requests. The rest of her time she was nannying for a family with two little girls who were obsessed with playing _Brave_. She picked them up from camp in the afternoons and watched them until their parents got home around 8. It sounded rough, but Annie liked it. “And I kinda met someone…” Annie slipped in, as they were finishing their lunch.  
  
“Really?” Britta asked. “That’s great. When? Where?”  
  
“Well, we haven’t gone out, but he’s always bringing me coffee and saving me food that people bring into the office, because I can’t bring it into the lab, so I can kinda tell that he likes me? And he knows that I work at night, and he’s on a rotating schedule.”  
  
Britta interrupted, on alert, “Is he a lab guy or a cop?”  
  
“A cop. He’s cute- he’s not old. I don’t know if it’s going to go anywhere,” Annie sighed.  
  
Seeing the look of infatuation on her friend’s face, and totally against her better judgment, “If you like him, you should at least give him your number. I mean, he has a job, that’s a lot more than you can say for a lot of guys. “  
  
Annie looked surprised. “I know that’s easy for you to say, but that’s very forward. I’ve never just…gave someone my number without them asking? And I could still be totally wrong. He could just be very friendly. He knows I’m the new girl.”  
  
Britta cut her off, “You know you’re right. Trust your instincts. There is absolutely nothing wrong with giving a non-creeper guy your number. This is 2012; we talk about continuing the fight for equality, well, it cuts both ways. Women need to feel empowered to put themselves non-traditional roles, including asking guys out, doing construction work, being the boss.”  
  
“Okay! I get it. I am…going to think about it…it’s not that easy. There has to be a good, “Annie gestured with her hands, “flow in the conversation.”  
  
“I’m sure you can do it,” Britta encouraged her. “Remember, guys like it. It takes the pressure off them. When I was foot modeling in L.A., I was working with this really cute guy who’d just moved there from the Midwest, and we got sent on this skeevy shoot in someone’s house that we knew probably wasn’t really for toe rings. So when we were done-“ Annie’s expression changed from confused to scandalized. “-we went out for drinks with a couple of the crew guys, and he seemed like a great guy, so I asked him out. And he said yes. He was too intimated to ask me, so he was relieved I made the first move. He moved back to Kansas the next week- he really wasn’t a city guy, but…it was a good week.”  
  
“Got it,” Annie said. “Well, I’ll work on that.”  
  
“Great!” Britta smiled, taking both of their trays to the trash container. “Where should we hit up first. I need a dress.”  
  
“Special occasion or just feel like buying a something nice?” Annie asked.  
  
“Sort-of a special occasion,” Britta danced around the question. “It has to be nice, because it’s to wear out…” Britta briefly contemplated lying; she could say she had to have a more formal dress for her job. It was half-true. Juniper Hill did host private events, and there were going to be some sweet opportunities for her to make some premium extra cash bartending them. They wouldn’t be wearing their gray t-shirts for those. But they wouldn’t start until fall, and besides, Britta didn’t want to lie to her friend. She had been worried earlier that morning about hurting Annie; Britta suspected Annie had romantic feelings for Jeff, even if they were grounded more in fantasy than reality. But hearing about her new potential love interest broke Britta’s willpower, because she did want to share this news with someone. No one had met any member of Jeff’s family before; his personal life was an enigma, so it was seriously exciting.  
  
“Allright,” Britta continued, “I really need a dress for tonight. I’m going to dinner at The W and, I’m confiding in you, so you can’t tell anyone.” Annie nodded, so Britta continued, “and I’m meeting Jeff’s Mom.” Annie shrieked in excitement. People stared. “Come on Annie, let’s start walking, so we don’t look crazy.”  
  
“Are you dating, is this-“  
  
“No! No, no, no, no!” Britta insisted.  “He just needs to have dinner with his Mom, and didn’t want to go alone, for some reason. So I volunteered.” It wasn’t totally the truth, but it was expedient.  
  
“Oh,” Annie looked slightly relieved. “I mean, that’s fine if you are, of course. I’m not going to tell you what to do. I was just surprised. Sorry. I know that came out weird.”  
  
Britta shrugged, and led them towards the women’s clothing stores. “That’s ok.”  
  
“I mean, that’s exciting. Do you know what she’s like?” Annie asked, fascinated.  
  
“I have no idea. I kinda can’t wait to meet the woman who produced Jeff Winger’s neuroses.  Can you even imagine?”  
  
“Not at all. He never talks about her.” In all fairness, Annie thought, Britta never talked about her family either, but she wasn’t about to bring that up.  
  
“We read about children of divorce in my psych class last year. I’m sure that’s one of the big reasons he was so self-involved when we first met him. Their divorce sounded terrible, and one parent can try to ‘buy love’ or minimize guilty feelings by spoiling their kids, and it seems like it wasn’t his Dad. “  
  
“Are your parents divorced?” Annie was genuinely interested.  
  
“Oh, I wish. No, they deserve each other at this point…I don’t know if I’m going to like this person or not. She’s obviously been through a tough time herself, because Jeff’s Dad seems like a jag, but she kinda put Jeff through a lot, and her personal standards are probably through the roof. The Lexus, the lying about being a lawyer, the materialism…who was he trying to impress?” she asked rhetorically.  
  
“I guess. I’m still jealous though.”  
  
“So, anyway, I didn’t have anything I really felt like wearing.” They were in front of Forever 21.  
  
“Let’s stop in here. They have nice stuff sometimes, and it’s pretty cheap,” Annie suggested.  
  
“Oh, Annie, no. Do you shop here? This is all produced in sweatshops. Actual sweatshops, and they blatantly rip off designers so they don’t make any money on their own work, and then tag everything you buy with some bible verse; talk about hypocritical. “  
  
“So, next option.” Annie didn’t think Britta was wrong, but she glanced at an adorable white summer dress on a rack near the entrance that was marked $15, and wondered how bad a person it made her to want it anyway.  
  
They spent thirty minutes wandering from store to store before Britta found the perfect dress in Anthropologie. She didn’t even look at the price tag, but she was glad she took time that morning to take her credit card out of the freezer. The dark green dress was very flattering and she could comfortably move in the fabric; plus, it looked well made without being too formal. She had the perfect heels to match at home, so she wouldn’t have to buy new ones. Annie approved. “What are you doing with your hair?”  
  
Britta hadn’t thought of it, but she’d just washed it. Was something wrong with it? “I guess I’ll put it up?”  
  
“Well,” Annie volunteered, “I don’t have to meet the girls at the bus stop until four. You can come back to my place and I’ll fix it for you?”  
  
“Oh, that sounds nice.” Britta had never been the girl to get her hair done by the other girls in school when she was a kid, but she was mildly envious of those who had been through the ritual.  
  
“Ok- yay! The only thing I ask is that you tell me everything about Jeff’s Mom tomorrow!”  
  
“And you still promise you won’t tell anyone I told you?” she warned.  
  
“Yes, totally,” Annie assured her. 

* * *

  
Jeff wasn’t a bad son. He remembered his mother’s birthday, mother’s day and holidays. Jeff knew his mother loved him; she just asked a lot of personal questions, and for the past few years he no longer knew what to talk to her about, now that he couldn’t discuss work. He was glad she had taken the opportunity to retire; after his parents had divorced, his mother went on the night shift for the better pay and he knew it took a toll on her. Ostensibly, she also had done it so she could be home more during the day to be with him, once she became a single parent, but in reality, she spent a lot of the time catching up on sleep and as a child Jeff learned to be very quiet in the house and not to invite friends over.  
  
He texted Britta to let her know he was in the car on the way to pick her up; he didn’t want to be late so he was giving them plenty of time to get to the hotel. Overall, Jeff was feeling pretty relaxed. They’d spent part of their weekend together, and it helped. He’d been a little on edge after Britta had spent the night at his place, unable to stop thinking about her. His mind was replaying the image of Britta’s blond ponytail falling to the side of her face as she leaned over him, smiling as she took him into her mouth, one hand rhythmically stroking while she licked, the other fingers delicately fingering the underside of his balls. He couldn’t think about it without getting turned on, and would instead try to think of Britta struggling against sleep against his chest, leg entwined with his left hip. It was no use; that was just as intimate. Though they’d already decided to meet that Saturday, he had started to be concerned about what they were getting into hanging out alone. Because he was very much looking forward to sleeping with her, and he was hoping she wanted that, too. But he didn’t want to bring it up; he was hoping it would just happen, like last time. Good friends with premium benefits.    
  
They’d been going to meet for brunch at Skeeper’s for their pancakes and topless tequila sunrises (really bottomless as part of their pitch), but Jeff had been called to Greendale by Shirley to taste test new sandwiches, and Britta joined him. Shirley and Pierce were working on Shirley’s Sandwiches over the summer, in anticipation of its’ grand opening for the first day of classes. When Jeff and Britta arrived, they found the place in great shape, and Shirley served them regular and vegetarian versions of spicy pork belly roll with roasted vegetables that Pierce wanted to call a Chinese Fire Drill.  
  
“Pierce! Enough! That doesn’t even make any sense! Do you even know what a Chinese fire drill is?” Shirley was exasperated from dealing with this all week. She would produce a sandwich and Pierce would produce twenty non-viable names as his contribution to the endeavor.  
  
“What’s wrong with it? It’s Chinese pork and it’s hot; it makes sense to me. What, Asian Fire Drill is better? You don’t get the joke, Shirley. You don’t understand, it’s all about branding,” Pierce sincerely asserted.  
  
“Jeff,” Shirley pleaded, through gritted teeth, “Please knock some sense into this man!”  
  
“Oh, this is why you invited me over this morning?” Jeff teased her.  
  
“…no,” Shirley rebutted, in a completely unconvincing tone.  
  
Jeff did his best to convince Pierce to let Shirley name her own creations, and to instead focus on decorations for the fall dance the dean had asked them to sponsor. Afterwards he asked if Britta would mind, since they were there, dropping by the library so he could grab a book for his online class.  
  
“It’s strange being here when classes aren’t really going on,” she remarked, while Jeff browsed for what he needed.  
  
“Are these..” he started to ask, grabbing a book from the shelf and cracking open the front cover, “they are! I think some of these are stolen from the public library.”  
  
“Greendale’s not that lame a school, let me see,” she demanded. But he was right, it read property of the county library, and it looked like it was still checked out. They both laughed. “Did you find what you need?” she asked.  
  
“Yeah, it’s right here.” He grabbed the book. “Should I check it out or return it to Barnes  & Noble for a refund?” he joked. “This is nice,” he interrupted his own train of thought, indicating her necklace, an amethyst quartz on a long gold chain. “New?”  
  
“No, I’ve had it. I don’t always wear it. You like it?” she asked him.  
  
“I’m not sure. Maybe I’d be able to tell with less distractions.”  
  
Britta felt his eyes burning into her chest where the pendant lay.  “Like?”  
  
“Like, if you weren’t wearing anything else.” He grinned and lay a finger on the necklace. Britta grabbed it out of his hands.  
  
“I feel like you’d be distracted anyway.”  
  
“Let’s find out,” he dared her. Then she let herself be kissed deeply, Jeff pinning her against the stacks. Conscious of at least a couple people milling about the library, Britta reminded him to check his book out, and they walked together out to the parking lot to make their way back to Jeff’s place. When they got there, they forgot the book in the Lexus and went straight back to the bedroom, shedding clothes as soon as Jeff pulled his key from the lock. They were standing next to the bed and had just started kissing furiously, when Jeff gently pulled Britta to a comfortable position on the bed, and knelt to the floor in front of her. He spread her legs over his shoulders, and placed his right hand under her left hip, gently caressing her butt. She opened up to him, and he licked her with the wide base of his tongue, flexing it to make circles closely around her clit. She automatically bit her lip and tried not to moan at the amazing wet warmth. He took her clit in between his soft lips and gently sucked, then flicked with the tip of his tongue, then sucked again, and she felt him slide two long fingers into her. Britta opened her eyes and concentrated on the movements of Jeff’s broad shoulder muscles. The tension in her stomach began to mount as he built a rhythm with his hand and at Britta’s urging (with ‘mmmms’ and her hand in his hair, guiding him), increased the pressure with his mouth. He slid his fingers out and concentrated on placing his lips firm against her, knowing she was almost there. When she came, she called out his name and grabbed his shoulder because she couldn’t grasp the sheets tightly enough. “Holy fuck, Jeff. Holy fuck.”  
  
He climbed up on to the bed and she shifted position so he could lie over her comfortably. He noticed her cheeks were flushed and it made him grin. She reached up and kissed him. “I hate to be that person, but what time is it? I have to be at work at six.” They kissed again; he relished the feel of her breasts brushing against his bare chest, and only reluctantly looked up to glance at his wristwatch.  
  
“It’s three…we could have a little more time. If you really need to leave at four?” he proposed.  
  
“Yeah,” she reasoned, “but I really need to leave at four.” He nodded and placed little kisses along her collarbone. Britta let herself get back into the mood, and felt his growing erection against her leg. She stopped again to ask, “Do you have anything?” She gestured to the nightstand. “My bag's in the living room.”  
  
“Yeah,” he reassured her, reaching over and pulling a Trojan Ultra Thin from the drawer. “I haven’t dipped into our stash.”  
  
“I just meant, it’s better to be safe,” she clarified.  
  
“I know, you’re right,” he agreed, handing her the packet.  
  
“But it’s good to know I haven’t been subsidizing your birth control with The Real Bimbos of Greendale College.”  
  
“Please, when’s the last time you saw me with someone like that? I feel like my tastes have improved.”  
  
“I agree,” she said opening the packet and unrolling the condom on him. 

* * *

  
Afterwards, they each had lain back on the pillows, with one of the soft blue cotton sheets covering them. Jeff didn’t know what made him ask, but once the thought popped into his head, he had to know, “So nothing’s happening with you and Troy?”  
  
Britta thought he sounded worried. “Oh, god, no. I mean, awhile ago, I thought maybe something was there, but we’re just really different.” She debated whether to continue, but figured it would come out eventually and there was nothing to hide. “We did try hanging out a couple times though. But Troy would always ask Abed to join us. And when he did, like, we would be walking and they would be having a conversation and walking a few feet ahead of me. Not on purpose, just wrapped up in their world. I was never going to get used to that.”  
  
“Yeah, I’d never have said anything, but I’m kinda glad you went that way. You’re too- mature? You deserve better.”  
  
“Thanks, Jeff. Ugh, I don’t want to get up. But I’m starving, too,” she admitted. They sat up and started to look for their clothes.  
  
“I have some leftover pizza in the fridge; I’ll throw it in the microwave,” he offered.  
  
“Or cold is fine. Seriously- starving.”  

* * *

  
That was two days ago, and now Jeff was knocking on the door of Britta’s apartment.  
  
“Coming!” she cried, and slipped on her heels just before she opened the door. “Hey, what happened to you?” she teased. Jeff was wearing a very well-tailored suit, one that she recognized from Abed’s birthday party dinner, and had gotten a haircut and trimmed his scruff.  
  
Jeff hadn’t said anything. “Um, wow. You look fantastic.”  
  
“Thanks Jeff. I promise I won’t embarrass you in front of your Mommy.”  
  
“You won’t.” There was another pause. “Really, you look… stunning.”  
  
“No big deal, Winger. Let’s go; don’t let Daniel out.” Secretly she was glad he noticed, and smiled when she turned away from him to grab her bag.  
  
She wasn’t sure if it was her dress or the occasion that caused the slight change in how Jeff was acting that night, but he opened the door of the car for her both when they were leaving her apartment and when they got to the hotel. He didn’t seem nervous, exactly, but there was an unspoken tension in the air. They didn’t talk about dinner in the car, but how their respective classes were going, and Britta revealed she had her first creeper bar customer. “This job was going so well. He only comes in nights that I’m there and still won’t quit, even though I’ve turned him down twice already.”  
  
“Can’t you get this loser kicked out?” Jeff asked.  
  
“Ugh. He’s a friend of my manager’s.”  
  
“So make up a boyfriend. That’ll get him to back off.”  
  
“That’s worse,” Britta shook her head. “I hate when women have to do that. It’s so offensive. I’ll deal with him.  He has to get it eventually.”  
  
They had arrived a little early, so ordered drinks in the bar. Britta agonized over the cocktail menu. “Get your usual?” Jeff flagged down the bartender.  
  
“No, I’m not drinking straight-up vodka in front of your Mom.”  
  
“Why not? She won’t care. Don’t make a big deal over this,” he warned.  
  
“Ketel One martini with orange bitters,” she ordered.  
  
“Four olives,” Jeff interjected.  
  
“Gross, no. He’s kidding. And a Macallan. Neat.” The bartender left and she turned to Jeff. “Your Mom drinks?”  
  
“She’s not an alcoholic, but sure. She’s American.”  
  
“And this is just, like, a normal catch-up thing you do? Not at her house or your apartment?” she pried.  
  
“Sometimes. I told you, she’s bringing a…” he didn’t want to say the word. “Guy friend. Honestly, I’m not crazy about the idea. ”  
  
“It’s nice that women can have a full life when they’re older; it’s probably more fun dating when you don’t have as much drama in your life.” The bartender came with their drinks, and Jeff immediately took a swig. He wasn’t interested in this perspective.  
  
“Why bitters?”  
  
“What?” she asked, disoriented by the change in subject.  
  
“In the martini.”  
  
“Try it,” she offered, and he took a sip from her glass, just as an older brunette approached the bar.  
  
Britta thought the woman was there to order a drink, but instead she exclaimed, “Jeffy!” and kissed his cheek, grabbing his shoulders in a side hug. Britta was momentarily stupefied. This was the opposite of whom she had envisioned as Jeff’s Mom. In her mind, Doreen Winger, was tall, trim, ashy blond, no-nonsense. Standing in front of her was a woman who vaguely reminded her of a movie actor…who was it? Margo Martindale? In so many ways she was the opposite of Jeff- warmer, more open. She had an incredibly friendly face. A little taller than Britta, with short, dark hair, on the heavier side, and in a black dress that, while lovely, didn’t seem particularly high end. Basically, a perfectly ordinary Colorado mother. But she looked very good for being in what Britta expected was her early 60s. “Hi sweetie. It’s so good to see you. And this is Britta?” Doreen leaned in to give her a hug.  
  
“Yes- hi, hello. Nice to meet you.” Britta reciprocated.  
  
“You are so pretty. Jeff said you were a pretty girl, but my goodness. “ Britta raised an eyebrow at Jeff, clearly enjoying this. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I bet Jeff thought I’d scare you away, but I think this is far too long to go without meeting someone’s mother. That is such a lovely dress.”  
  
“Oh, thank you,” said Britta. She couldn’t help liking this woman already.  
  
“Should we go to our table?” Doreen asked. “Mark’s outside.”  
  
“Oh, Mark. Let’s not keep Mark waiting.” Jeff finally piped up, half-sarcastically. If she noticed, Doreen didn’t acknowledge it.  
  
“Do you like this, Britta?” Doreen asked, touching Jeff’s scruff. “You’re so handsome, I just wish you’d let everyone see your handsome face.”  
  
Britta seized the opportunity to do Jeff a solid. “Totally. I think he really pulls it off.”  
  
“Well, if you like it.” Doreen conceded, and led them out to their table. Jeff squeezed Britta’s shoulder with his free hand, but said nothing. 

* * *

  
“That guy?!” Jeff whispered loudly in Britta’s ear. An older man with gray hair who was sitting alone at a four top stood up as they approached the table. He was dressed in a nice black suit, though not as nice as Jeff’s, and, like Jeff’s mother, had put on some weight in his older years. He seemed perfectly fine, but Jeff was clearly disapproving already.  
  
They got through ordering when things got interesting. “So, Mom,” Jeff asked, trying to make conversation, “what are you doing with all your time now?”  
  
“Oh, it’s so nice just being on a normal schedule now! I haven’t felt so rested in years. I lost five pounds already, just sleeping right. Mark has the sweetest dog, Maisy, so we’ve been taking her to the park and they have these doggie obstacle courses she likes and it gets her energy out. Mark, show him a picture of Maisy.” Mark dutifully got his phone out, but it was clear he loved this dog. “And so we just started looking for another because her sister passed away this spring.”  
  
Mark passed the phone to Jeff and Britta, and spoke up, “Yeah, Zuzu, we loved her. She was a sweet girl. She was 14. Big dogs don’t live as long as the little ones. They’re good tempered though; really patient with my girls.”  
  
“You have kids?” Jeff asked.  
  
“Yeah,” Doreen answered for him. “Two daughters- they’re great girls and Mark takes care of them. You’ll love them; Jessica and Emily. Jessica’s finishing college this fall. She’s so smart. She’s going to be an engineer.”  
  
“Em’s deciding what she wants to do. She’s a senior in high school this fall.”  
  
“So, animal shelter?” Britta asked hopefully.  
  
“Oh, of course,” replied Doreen. “Are you a dog person?”  
  
“Sure, I just have cats, well, one cat now. I’m never really home anymore.”  
  
Doreen nodded, “They’re a lot of work. I always felt bad I couldn’t get Jeff another dog after Luke.”  
  
“You had a dog?” Britta quizzed Jeff. It automatically came out.  
  
He looked at her and whispered under his breath, “A long time ago.”  
  
Jeff’s Mom answered for him, “Poor Luke.”  
  
“Oh, no, did he have an accident?” Britta assumed.  
  
“Jeff’s father got him in the divorce, and…”  
  
“No, my father took him in the divorce. He was my dog. Can we not talk about this? It happened and it’s over.” Jeff was not about to discuss a painful childhood memory in front of a virtual stranger.  
  
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Doreen conceded. “I just wanted Britta to know how bad I felt about it.” She turned to Mark, “You know how horrible that man was.” Jeff rolled his eyes, but agreed. He always thought his Mom had hated that dog, though, so he took in this new perspective.    
  
Their entrees arrived. “Wait,” Doreen asked. “Before we eat, I want to tell you something important. It’s good news. Mark and I have been going together for awhile now, and last month he asked me to marry him. I wasn’t going to tell you over the phone, so you see why I waited until tonight. So, we’re getting married!” She looked delighted, and Jeff looked horrified. He took a drink.  
  
“Well,” Jeff started, unsure how to continue and be polite.  
  
Britta helped, knowing he’d regret anything unkind. “Congratulations! We’re so happy for you. You look so excited. Do you have a ring?”  
  
Doreen opened her purse and pulled out an engagement ring that Mark then slipped on to her finger. “I didn’t want to give it away before we talked about it,” showing her hand to Britta. It was a sizable rock. Mark had mentioned earlier in the evening that he was an accountant; she had underestimated how financially secure that profession could be. Jeff nodded at the ring, feigning approval. As they ate, they made small talk, and Doreen revealed the wedding would be fairly soon, in the fall, and invited them to Labor Day barbecue at her house, so Jeff could meet Mark’s daughters and she could get to know Britta better. Jeff promised to check their schedules, only having the slightest intentions of doing so. Britta learned that Jeff had still been slightly feigning his work life to his mother, that he was doing consulting work. It was half-true, with the Shirley’s gig, and she backed him up on that. Britta tried to learn more about Jeff’s Mom, but Jeff kept trying to cut her off. She’d ask about her nursing career, and Jeff would chime in with things like, “yeah, your brother’s a doctor, right, Britta?” that he knew would make her redirect the conversation again.  
  
Right as they ordered dessert, Britta asked, “Could you excuse me and Jeff for a sec?” She dragged him back out to the bar. “Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh on Mark? He seems like a nice guy, and he obviously makes your Mom happy. She’s been smiling the whole night.”  
  
“You don’t know her Britta. She was happy before this guy. We don’t know him. You know why he wants to be with my Mom? I don’t. He wants a mother for his kids? Someone to take care of his dog? Maybe he’s broke and needs her savings? Look at him, he’s a loser. If she’s gonna go out with someone, I don’t know why she’s settling for that.”  
  
“Whoa! He seems like a nice guy and a good Dad, maybe that’s why she likes him? I don’t think he’s trying to grift your Mom. I get this is a shock, but have you thought about maybe it’s because you aren’t ready to see your Mom with another man? Or see your Mom as an adult?” Britta offered.  
  
“Not now, Britta. This isn’t about me, and it’s not about you trying to psychoanalyze me. My Mom’s a nice person, and I don’t want her getting taken advantage of- again.”  
  
Britta spied Doreen approaching. “Hold on, your Mom’s coming over.”  
  
Doreen touched Jeff’s shoulder and asked, “Is everything okay?”  
  
“Britta’s not feeling so well, how about I call you tomorrow?”  
  
“Yeah,” Britta lied, somewhat annoyed with Jeff for using her to get out of his own messy situation. “I’m sorry. It was so nice to meet you. I’ll see you on Labor Day, though.” Ha, Jeff. Ha. Therapized. “I’m going to say good night to Mark and we’ll get going home.”  
  
“Oh,” Doreen hugged her, “feel better, honey.” Britta left for the table, and Doreen turned to Jeff. “I really like her. Have you thought about when you’re gonna ask her?”  
  
“What?” Jeff was caught off guard. Not that his mother hadn’t asked before when he was going to get married.  
  
“I want to see you happy, Jeff, with someone who’s going to support you. You don’t want to wait forever.” She pulled out her phone. “Look at Karen’s grandkids,” she showed him a picture of her friend’s grandchildren, two smiling blonde haired, blue eyed toddlers with messy hair playing with sand toys at the beach. “Britta’s a beautiful girl. I bet this is what your kids are going to look like. I bet she was a blonde when she was a baby, too.”  
  
“Mom!” Jeff exclaimed, embarrassed. “You can’t do that!”  
  
“Why not? I bet her parents want grandkids, too. And it’s true. You’re going to have beautiful babies. I don’t want to wait a lot longer,” she playfully scolded him.  
  
Just in time, Britta returned with her bag, and Jeff pulled out his wallet, giving his card to the hostess.  
  
“Jeff!” Doreen scolded him “Don’t do that, Mark is getting dinner.”  
  
“No, Mom. I’ve got this. He doesn’t have to get dinner.”  
  
“Jeffrey.” Doreen was firm, “Please don’t. I told you already.”  
  
Neither was budging, but the hostess already had the card in her hand, and took it to the waiter to run it.  
  
“I really wish you hadn’t done that,” Doreen said. “Thank you for dinner, but you have to give in to other people sometimes.”  
  
“I love you, Mom. Good night. Enjoy dessert. Tell Mark I said congratulations.” He gave her a hug, collected his card, and walked out with Britta.  
  


* * *

  
Britta demanded his keys when they got to the car. “You’re too upset to drive.”  
  
“I’m not. Fine, I’m not in a great mood, but I can drive.” But he looked over at her, and seeing her concern, conceded.  
  
“You owe me ice cream,” she told him, as he got into the passenger seat and she started the engine. “I really wanted those profiteroles. I’m mad you made us leave before they came.  Timing, Winger, Jesus.”  
  
He laughed in spite of himself. “You’re right. I’m kinda in the mood for ice cream anyway now. Now that I’m getting a gross new stepdad….and no, that’s all I’m saying about it for the rest of the night.”  
  
“Fine, deal.” She promised, and headed towards the bodega by her apartment.    
  
“Where are we going?” he asked.  
  
“The bodega, then my apartment? Good?”  
  
“No, I need real ice cream. Whole Foods.” He demanded. She sighed, and turned the car in the direction of the supermarket. When they got there, it was hard to stay exasperated with him. “This stuff,” he explained, holding up a container of Jeni’s ice cream. “This is what we need after that.” It was Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk. Britta had gotten used to Jeff’s high standards over the years. Some things she thought were completely asinine. The $300 jeans, the $10 body wash. But some things- the chilled sparking water in the fridge, the usually spotless tub with supply of bath bombs, that she could share, she was starting to really enjoy. She could get used to artisanal ice cream.  
  
“This, then, too,” holding up a pint of Salty Caramel. “Oh,” she noticed. “Don’t you like ‘Whiskey & Pecans’? “  
  
“I don’t like pecans. They ruined it. Wait- how do you say it?”  
  
“Say what? Pee-cans?”  
  
“Peh-cahns.”  
  
“Half the population says pee-can. You’re not getting me on this. I’m glad you hate them…we have to leave before I want more.”  
  
When they got to Britta’s apartment, Jeff searched for two spoons, while she immediately switched on the A/C in the living room and bedroom areas, and changed into pajama bottoms and a tank top. Jeff kicked off his shoes and hung up his jacket. He hung his tie on the back of the couch and was undoing the top button of his shirt when Britta’s cat Daniel approached. Normally, Jeff avoided him, but he let the cat settle next to him, and pet his back.  It was oddly comforting. Daniel was a super chill old cat. Britta came back in, looking adorable in popsicle printed pajama pants that were slightly too big and a light pink tank. “I can get him away from you.”  
  
“No, it’s fine,” Jeff said. “I kinda like him here. He’s so calm for a cat.”  
  
“Yeah, I don’t know if he’s calm or just old or depressed though.”  
  
“Ooh- sorry.”  
  
“No,” Britta shook her head. “It’s fine. I should adopt another cat. He’s used to having a buddy around…I just don’t think the timing’s so great for that. “ She went to the kitchen and set some food out for Daniel, getting his attention, and drawing him away from the sofa. She washed her hands and joined Jeff on the couch. He fed her a bite of the strawberry ice cream.  
  
“So much better than bodega ice cream, right?” he coaxed her.  
  
“Yes, more,” she demanded another bite. “Do you want to stay here tonight?” she asked. She knew he was sad, and she wasn’t sure what she could do about it, but she didn’t want him to be by himself.  
  
“Is that cool?”  
  
“Yeah, definitely. “ They sat in silence for awhile while Britta thought of a topic unrelated to that evening’s events. “You were good with Pierce this weekend. I think he’s going to be really lonely when we’re gone. He’ll still have classes, and the sandwich shop, if Shirley lets him work there or whatever, but…”  
  
“I don’t think Pierce is going to be taking classes at Greendale next year.”  
  
“You don’t? Why not? He’s been there for literally over a dozen years.” Britta reminded him.  
  
“Yeah, but you don’t think he’s going to let all of us graduate without him. This is a guy who hates being left out. So he will change his existence, which to this point has been taking classes at Greendale, to not be left out of the experience of getting out of there. So, no, I don’t doubt he’ll be lonely without us, I question what exactly he’ll be doing at all.”  
  
“He takes more blow off classes than you do! Does he even have a major to graduate with?” she chided him, glad to take his mind off his mother’s impending marriage.  
  
“Geez- probably not. What was the hot major in the 90s?” Jeff joked. Daniel had finished eating and made his way back over to the sofa, nestling next to Britta. “He gets around pretty well for a guy with one eye…so why the switch from feminist names to people names, or did they come like that?”  
  
“My cats’ names? They’re just names I kinda liked.”  
  
Jeff smiled. “Is this a baby name list?”  
  
“Are you making fun of me?” Jeff shook his head, but he was still smiling at the idea. “Fine. Why waste them? I’m thirty- I’m not going to be popping out, like, five boys. I think it’s safe to hit that list.”  
  
“Walter?” Jeff asked, definitely not judging. She nodded. “That’s cute. Really. It grew on me. What are the others? And please tell me that you’re saving some and this doesn’t turn into revealing all the stray cats you’re going to adopt. And why do you keep bringing up your birthday? Trust me- thirty…you’ve got a lot of time ahead of you. And according to my Mom, you could totally pop out five boys in the next couple years…” his voice got strained and he shook his head.  
  
“I dunno, I haven’t really thought about it.”  
  
“You’ve got, like, 15 good years,” he reassured her.  
  
“Ugh, Pierce- no! Stop. Names.”  
  
“You clearly have,” he teased, feeling better. “You just said. I wanna know.”  
  
“It’s private. It just- kinda ruins it when you say it out loud. Like, that’s why people should never say what they’re naming their baby until it’s born. There’s this girl I worked with in the Peace Corps who’s pregnant now, and she insists on referring to her baby as if she’s already doing stuff already. Like every status update, it’s ‘Chloe just loves soup,’ or ‘Chloe’s so excited about the museum this weekend.’ It’s beyond obnoxious. And I can’t help hating the fuck out of that name now- the kid’s not even born.” Jeff looked at her, surprised. “Yes, I hate a baby.” He laughed. “You’re so enthusiastic, what’s on your list?”  
  
“Well, Jeff, obviously.”  
  
“Obviously,” she smirked.  
  
“My problem,” Jeff started, “is that the older I get, the more I meet people I don’t like that I’ll always associate with that name. What if I name my kid something great, then I meet some loser with the same name?”  
  
“So no Connor?”  
  
“Was never thinking about that anyway.”  
  
“No Craig?”  
  
“Definitely, definitely not. I know you’re just fucking around, but you see what I mean, right?”  
  
“Yeah, of course. Well, on the bright side, before we met, you never knew the names of the girls you hooked up with, so you’ve got a lot more contenders there.”  
  
“Low blow. Accurate, but…what are we doing? We were nursing my wounds, right? How’d we get on this?”  
  
“You started it,” she reminded him. “Can I ask you something? You don’t have to tell me, but…why’d you name your dog Luke?”  
  
He hesitated. It was not a good memory, and he hadn’t thought of it in ages. “Star Wars. I was five, okay?” She nodded. She thought it was adorable, really, but she didn’t want to interrupt. “My parents had started having these really big fights- I didn’t even know what they were about, and my Dad…I remember him being really a jerk sometimes. He’d get drunk, yell. He came home one day and gave me this puppy, this little Golden Retriever, and it wasn’t my birthday or Christmas. He just wanted me to like him, I think. Maybe like him better than my Mom? I really loved that dog. But by the time he stopped being a puppy, he was gone. My Mom won a lot of stuff in the divorce- the house….me. And I think to get her back, I came home from school one day and he was gone.”  
  
Britta felt tears welling in her eyes, “Jeff, that’s horrible, I had no idea.”  
  
“Well, why would I bring it up?”  
  
“How old were you?”  
  
“I don’t know…eight?”  
  
“That sucks.”  
  
“Yeah, it sucked.” He leaned his head on her shoulder. “Can you not tell anyone? It’s not a big deal, I just don’t want it to be a thing.”  
  
“Of course I won’t. It’s private.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“Do you want to go to bed? Just sleep? It’s been a long day?”  
  
“Yeah,” he admitted. “That sounds good.”  
  
She put the leftover ice cream in the freezer, and followed him into the bedroom where they slept entwined late into the next morning, when they were awoken by a loud knocking on the door.  
  



	4. Comparative Religion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeff learns something new about Britta when they spend the afternoon together at Ben Bennett's christening.

In her dream, Britta was working, but her cat was walking up and down the bar while she poured vibrant shots from a bottle that somehow kept the colors separated. It was a good time. Someone snuck up behind her and started using the very noisy blender to make a milkshake. Then another milkshake. Then she realized that didn’t sound like the blender at all but she couldn’t place what the sound was coming from. She squinted open her eyes and adjusted to the morning. She always slept in the middle of the bed when she slept alone, and on the right side when she slept with Jeff. At the moment, she was sleeping on her side facing him on his back- he held her left hand in his fist close against his chest. Jeff turned to speak to her without opening his eyes. “Morning.”

“Morning.”

“Who is that?” he mumbled.

“What? Oh, is that the door?” she realized.

“Yeah.”

“Probably the super or ConEd or something. They’ll go away.” Britta still wasn’t fully awake.

 “They’re not stopping...you should see who it is.”

“What if it’s a serial killer?” Britta still needed to be sold on the idea of getting out of bed.

Jeff opened his eyes and smiled. “He’s a very determined serial killer. He’ll have to get both of us.” He let go of her hand and shouted, “Coming!” It was a junior one bedroom apartment; it couldn’t legally be called a one bedroom, but there was a separate bedroom area. Still, it was small enough that he was sure the person at the door easily heard him and, sure enough, the knocking stopped.

“Hey!” she protested gently, but rubbed her eyes and got up.

Jeff propped himself up on his elbows, raising an eyebrow as he said, “Well, send them away and come back to bed.” 

“No, now I’m up.” Britta trudged to the door and Jeff heard a conversation start with another woman’s voice, but he had no idea who it could be. He figured it would be a good idea to get out of bed and put on his pants. He leaned his ear to the door while he pulled them on.

“I had to leave Ally’s; their place was disgusting, and I tried to call you but you weren’t picking up your phone and I just tried your buzzer-“

“Yeah, it’s broken,” he heard Britta chime in.

“Sorry- is it a really bad time?” the woman asked.

“No, it’s fine, come on in. Give me your bag.” Jeff opened the door to the living area, and saw a young Japanese woman about Britta’s age enter the apartment with a backpack, a large duffel and a sleeping bag. Half her head was shaved, the other half dyed a dark purple, and her face was covered in piercings.

“Oh, hey.” The woman noticed Jeff before Britta did and giggled.

“Oh, god,” Britta groaned. “No, listen, this is, just. Kaho, this is my friend, Jeff. Jeff, this is my friend Kaho.”

“Big night?” Kaho asked, gesturing to Jeff’s dress pants and shoes in his hand. Jeff and Britta looked at each other and answered at the same time.

“Sure,” Jeff said nonchalantly.

“No,” Britta asserted.

“Sorry! Just kidding,” Kaho laughed.

“Sorry,” Jeff started, “I didn’t know someone Britta knew was here.”

 “I can really go,” Kaho turned to Britta.

“It’s fine,” Britta reassured her. “Just let me get dressed. We can go grab breakfast?” She followed Jeff into the bedroom. “Give me ten minutes.”

“Did you know she was coming” Jeff asked, as he searched for his shirt and socks.

“No, I knew she was in town, but I guess it didn’t work out with the people she was crashing with.” Britta whispered as she dug through her dresser for a clean t-shirt. “I haven’t seen her in a year. She got married and moved to Austin. She’s really nice, though; I know she’s really open…” she said, half-apologetically.

“She doesn’t go to Greendale?” Jeff asked, trying to place this person.

 “No, we did the Peace Corps together then got rail passes and did the backpacking thing for awhile. I forget where she went, but she graduated from some fancy school before she joined. I was so glad when she came, though- not everyone’s so great to work with over there.”

“There are jerk Peace Corps volunteers?” Jeff sat on the bed and finished tying his shoes.

 “Yeah, and you don’t want to be trapped in a remote village with them as the only other person who speaks English.” She was about to take off her pink tank top when she turned to him and paused, “Are you going to watch me get dressed?”

 “Um, no. “ He looked her in the eyes. “I’m not going out there and making small talk with your friend while you get ready. Allright, fine- I’m going to the bathroom- but don’t complain I’m taking too long.” Kaho waved as he made his way in, where he found Daniel hiding. Somehow looking at the cat in a ball in the tub made him realize that this girl crashing at Britta’s could seriously compromise their plans to hang out for the rest of the summer. He was liking just the two of them spending time together, without the group. They always had gravitated towards each other, but this summer felt different, in part because he felt like they were different with the group than when they were alone. This might be their last summer together, and they might just have a couple weeks left. He had better be nice to her friend.

Britta made her way out to the living room to get shoes. “He’s hot,” Kaho said, giving Britta a thumbs up.

“Shhhh!” Britta was afraid of being overheard. 

“What?” Kaho asked. “He is. Is he from the bar?”

 “No, we go to school together. He’s a friend. He’s a good guy. Don’t ask me about it.”

“I just want to know the good stuff.”

“Perv. So, Ally’s was gross?” Britta asked.

“Disgusting. It’s like they’re twelve years old. They have a dishwasher! They’re too fucking lazy to load it. Their kitchen smelt so bad. I couldn’t do it. I’m just staying for a couple weeks, tops. I’ll pay your utilities or whatever you need.”

“Just stay here, it’s fine. It’s good to see you. Let me brush my hair and stuff.” Britta knocked on the bathroom door and Jeff exited. “Two minutes of small talk.”

“So,” Kaho asked Jeff. “What’s your name again?”

“Jeff. Kaho?” he ventured.

“Yeah. Coming to breakfast?” she asked. 

“I don’t want to intrude,” he explained.

“You’re not. You’ve gotta eat?” she said. He wavered- after all, this was probably one of Britta’s more approachable friends, but he hated surprise introductions.

“Another time,” he told her. “I’ve gotta get some stuff done at home. “ He grabbed his jacket, shouted goodbye to Britta, and made his escape.

* * *

 

 They didn’t talk all that week until they met up at Chang’s hearing that Friday morning at the courthouse. Jeff knew she had work and school, and now a houseguest to entertain, so he wasn’t worried. Still, it surprised him how happy he was to see her when she walked in and sat behind him and Troy, just as the hearing was starting. They were there to answer some questions by Chang’s attorney and the prosecutor, but the evaluator had determined Chang was mentally ill and they didn’t need to testify. The Dean seemed especially disappointed about being denied the opportunity to recount what he’d been through as a prisoner of Chang’s. It seemed the punishment for his dictatorship would be intensive outpatient treatment at Greendale Community Hospital, 300 hours of community service, and he was remanded to the custody of his brother the rabbi. It was a partial victory for the group. On his way out of the courtroom, Chang solemnly apologized, “I’m gonna make it up to you guys. That wasn’t me last year. I swear I’ve chang’ed.”

“No, you haven’t, you’re still using your name as a pun. And you didn’t even need to chang it. Ugh. It’s literally spelt the same way,” Jeff quipped back.

“It’s okay, Jeffrey,” the Dean said, placing a hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “He can’t hurt us now. Though maybe we can talk about how to get a restraining order?” Jeff pulled away.

“Can you believe we used to be afraid of passing that guy’s classes?” Troy asked.

 “Just because he’s mentally ill, doesn’t make him not dangerous, Troy,” Britta asserted. “And we’re still not sure he wasn’t faking it. I mean, they had one therapist interview him for a couple hours- do you think she really got to know all the crazy manipulations we’ve seen?”

“She’s a professional, Britta,” Jeff said. “After all we’ve been through, let’s all just appreciate that we’re going to have one year at Greendale that’s Chang-free!”

“He has brought us all closer,” Abed considered. “We wouldn’t be friends without Chang.”

“Let’s not dwell on that,” Shirley suggested.

“Who wants to go out and celebrate?” asked Duncan. “First round on me.”

“Okay!”

* * *

 

Britta was having such a good time catching up with everyone that she hated to leave to go to work. Annie had taken off earlier, too, for her nanny gig. But everyone else stayed behind and ordered food and more drinks. So she wasn’t in the greatest mood when, an hours into her shift, her manager’s friend John sat down at the end of the bar and ordered a beer to nurse. He touched her arm as she set it down in front of him, and asked what she’d been up to that day. “Just hung out and watched tv,” she lied. “Listen, why are you here by yourself? Don’t you wanna watch a game with someone or whatever guys do? I’m just gonna bore you. It’s Friday- it gets crazy busy…not a great ruminating over a drink night.” She tried her hardest to not let him interpret this as flirting.

“No, I love talking to you,” he said. Fuck, she thought. It was going to be a long night.

She was never so glad to hear Ian Duncan’s sloshed “Hellllloooooooo, Britttta,” as he saddled up to the bar.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” she replied, brightly.

“We wanted to visit you. And maybe get some buy-backs?” he joked. Though he was kinda hoping she’d slip some drinks their way.

 “Yeah, we’ll see. The last time these guys came to see me at work, I got fired, so behave yourselves.” She remembered Abed’s birthday party, and though waitressing at that diner wasn’t the greatest gig, it sucked to lose it.

“Well, maybe the problem was, you didn’t invite me last time and those Americans don’t have proper manners.” He was trying to say something witty about the superiority of British tolerance for alcohol leading to better parties, but he was already too drunk to construct the sentence.

“What are you having?” Britta asked.

“Gin and tonic. Or surprise me,” he thought, suddenly.

“No, I think you should stick to whatever you’ve been drinking. Gin and tonic…” she went to mix the drink, and happily saw the rest of the group walking in.

John turned to Duncan, “So you’re her boyfriend?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I just was wondering who this lucky guy was she was talking about.” John, sensing a long night of being ignored, saluted Duncan, left some bills on the counter and left.

“Well, damn.” Duncan said to himself. He’d always liked Britta. She set his drink in front of him.

“Don’t, like, let it get to my manager I’m giving you guys free drinks.” She mumbled, and noticed John had left. “Oh, yay, that guy’s gone. This night’s looking up.”

The Dean came up to the bar and gave Britta his credit card. “Shots, everyone?! Come on! I feel like we should have an official toast to getting back Greendale. To victory! Ben Chang is out of our lives. We still have a lot of work to do, but, “ he stopped and sniffled, collecting his thoughts, “you saved this school, and you saved me. I love being your Dean, and I am going to miss you all so much next year. And Jeffrey, I don’t want you to leave in December. You made this school a home. So thank you all!” He wiped his eyes on a bar napkin. Britta pulled out the shot glasses, and poured ingredients into a shaker.

“What are you making?” Troy leaned over and asked.

“It’s a Gold Rush,” she answered, handing him one. “Bourbon, lemon juice and honey.”

 “We finally found something you’re good at, Britta,” Pierce tipped his shot to her. “Getting people wasted.”

“To Greendale,” toasted the Dean, and even Shirley participated.

“Wait,” Abed interrupted. “Did you just say you don’t want Jeff to leave in December?” The Dean looked like a deer in the headlights, and tried to remember what he’d just said. He looked at Jeff for guidance.

“Well, Abed,” Jeff started, “I was going to say something when we got back in September…because now is really not the greatest time to be talking about this, but, I’m probably graduating early. I am, I’m graduating in December, and I’m gonna be a lawyer again in time for the New Year.” He had felt so great about this before, and felt like he had to conceal his enthusiasm because of the exceptionally poor timing. “So, sorry it came out like this. It’s gonna be our last semester together- in school. But I’ll be around, all the time.” He tried to pull off that it was no big deal.

Unexpectedly, Troy went to give him a fist bump and he accepted. “Way to go, man.” The gesture seemed to set the tone for everyone else, and he accepted Pierce’s handshake, Shirley’s bear hug, the Dean’s more awkward hug. Britta looked across the bar at him and winked.

“This is great,” Jeff admitted. “I thought you’d be upset. Remember how Annie got all mad when we weren’t going to take Spanish together again our first year?”

“This is different, right?” Troy asked. “We’re still doing history together?” Jeff nodded. He continued, “well, I don’t know if I can graduate in May anyway, honestly. I don’t hate doing air conditioner repair, but I still want a college degree. I’m gonna take some more classes and finish it. Abed and I were talking- as long as we get out before the next Transformers movie, we’re all good.” They did their friendship handshake.

“Maybe we can graduate together Troy?” Shirley asked happily. “I already decided I can’t take a full load and run Shirley’s Sandwiches, so I’m only going to take a couple classes next semester, too. I’m putting Ben in Greendale daycare…I can’t leave him there all day,” she intoned, ominously.

“Wait,” Britta realized, excitedly. “Am I the only one in our whole group who’s graduating on time from college? Whoop whoop! Britta for the win! College graduate!” She started to do a shoulder dance.

“Ignore her,” Jeff directed them. “You know other people can see you?” he told her. “This won’t be good for tips.” She rolled her eyes at him, and moved down the bar to attend to other customers.

“Budge up,” Duncan gestured to Jeff and he moved over so the two could sit at the bar together. “Britta has a boyfriend?”

“What? No.” He replied, a little too quickly. “I mean, why are you asking.? You’re not into her are you? Isn’t there some rule about professors dating students?”

“Rules are meant to be broken, Yeah, I’m into her. I have a pulse. She beautiful, she’s passionate- she has some very interesting ideas on Freud’s psychosexual theories...”

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend, I don’t think,” he admitted.

“Well, that’s the dog’s bollocks!” Duncan sipped his gin and tonic. “That guy that was here at the bar thought I was her boyfriend; I guess I intimidated him,” he said, pleased with himself. “He said she’d been talking about her boyfriend, so…”

“So you went with it? Classy.” Jeff privately wondered if this was a fake boyfriend Britta was so adamantly against creating just days earlier, or if maybe she thought of the two of them as…dating? She would have said something though, right? But they hadn’t spent a lot of time together lately.

“Speaking of classy- you’re going to be a lawyer again soon. Cheers! Defending the downtrodden? The poor, huddled, affluenza-ridden youths of the greater Denver area?”

“I hope,” Jeff admitted. “I’m having lunch with one of my old colleagues next week. He started his own firm and his caseload’s huge. I might even be able to start on some freelance projects this fall.”

“You still miss it?” Duncan asked.

“I still really do.” Jeff admitted. Britta was back. “Hey, did you finish that paper?" 

“Yeah, and I got a letter in the mail right before I left for the courthouse wanting a $150 registration fee for my next course already.”

“Ouch,” Jeff sympathized. “That’s like two Greendale courses; really makes you appreciate what a great deal this school is.”

“It’s fine, I guess,” she admitted. “At least it’s the last ‘bonus’ one I’m taking. But it was a little…freaky…like, shit, I’m really doing this?”

“You didn’t get your tuition for the next semester yet?” Duncan asked them both. “They’re raising fees for the fall. No more of this $60 course stuff. There was a faculty meeting about it. The school board wants to cover the costs of Chang destroying half the school, and so many teachers and students left, they need to recruit new people. I see that stupid TV commercial all the time.

“It only airs, at, like 1 am?” Jeff remembered.

“So?” Duncan asked.

“They’re raising tuition?” Britta asked, getting back to the larger point. “Glad it’s my last year. That sucks.”

“Not a lot, it’s still cheaper than City College. Ugh, I don’t want to be the downer, don’t let me do this,” Duncan pleaded. He shirked away to join Abed’s new game of “Who Am I?”

Alone for the first time in days, Jeff asked Britta, “How’s it going with the new roommate?”

“Oh, you know. Fine. I haven’t seen a lot of her. She’s in town to do some free yoga certification for women of color, which I am totally going to try to go to next week, but I didn’t realize she’s looking for a place. I guess her new husband cheated on her with one of the friends they were letting stay during this music festival, and she found out and she’s not going back.”

“Eek. That blows. She wants to live with you now?” Jeff tried to assess the situation.

“Well, she’s just crashing for another week, but she’s starting a punk house and she wants me to move in…” Britta’s mind wandered. “The rent would be sooo cheap, like $100 a person, and they’re all gonna be feminists with a communal space to teach free classes…”

“That sounds like hell- and just like you.”

“I know,” she admitted, totally missing his point. “I feel awful. I know I should do it, I’ve just…gotten used to having my own space. And the last house I lived in, people get really cliquey and, it’s not so fun after awhile.” She’d been feeling guilty all week.

“That’s a totally normal person’s reaction,” he assured her. “You’re an adult, you should want your own stuff. It’s not materialism, it’s called having a life.”

“I just look at who I am now, and how different I feel from just a few years ago. Like, was I really the best person I was going to be, following my ideals, when I was 20? I feel like I was more successful when I was a drop-out. I knew I was doing something important. I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately,” she confessed.

“Look, it’s not over. Don’t discount everything you did for the last 10 years because you don’t want to live on a dirt floor or in a van with a bunch of hippies anymore.”

“That’s not what I said,” she cut him off, not wanting to be misinterpreted.

“I mean, you’ve done a lot with your life. It means something. I know you, you haven’t changed that much- you’re still stupidly selfless. But you’re not 20 anymore. Think like a lawyer. Work smarter, not harder. “

“Like what?” She didn’t understand what he was getting at.

“Like I tell you all the time- you’ve got to stop making things harder for yourself. What are you going to do when you stop bartending? Go through more school to be a therapist? Fine. But, like, you have marketable skills. You’re gonna have a college degree. I don’t know what you did in the Peace Corps, but you were in charge of shit hundreds of thousands of miles away.” 

“Do you have any idea how far hundreds of thousands of miles is, Jeff?” Britta asked, sarcastically. “You have to travel more.”

“Shut up, Britta. Whatever, Africa’s far away. Special skills. Work for a nonprofit, get some health insurance. “

“I’ve never worked in an office in my life, Jeff. “

“Congratulations. Who cares?” he said, mockingly. “Whatever. I’m just saying, if you’re worried…don’t. Like, take a computer class, because you are embarrassing when it comes to technology, but…”

“You are drunk,” she declared.

“I’m not!” He was mildly offended. “It sucks we can’t drink together like this. It’s all lopsided. That’s why you need to quit!” She laughed.

 “Speaking of,” she realized, “I’ve got to actually, like, work. Staying?” She whispered so the group wouldn’t overhear, “We can go to your place? Kaho…” He nodded.

* * *

 

Later that night, Britta left her car at the restaurant and went with Jeff back to his apartment. She hadn’t been anticipating spending the night with him, but earlier in the week had prepared by stocking up at the drugstore, and she’d left the condoms in her purse. “You don’t think anyone realizes we’re doing this again, do you?” she asked him.

Jeff briefly thought back to his conversation with Duncan earlier that night when he referenced Britta’s boyfriend, but quickly dismissed the thought, as Duncan wouldn’t put them together. “No, I’m sure it’s totally off their radar.” He squeezed her left thigh affectionately and she let him leave it there for the rest of the drive. As he pulled into his spot and turned the car off, Britta grasped his face and pulled him into her for a long, deep kiss. “Mmmmm, Britta!”

“It’s been a long week!” she confessed. He kissed her back.

“I know. Let’s go upstairs. Number eleven?” he proposed.

“Oh my god- you remember those?” she giggled.

“Yeah.” Suddenly self-conscious he asked, “You don’t?" 

“Oh, I do.” Britta opened the door eagerly, but he stopped her, grabbing her right hand.

 “Wait. Come on, I need to settle this. I’m really good at sex, aren’t I?” He wanted to hear her say it. He’d never had any complaints, but she made so many digs at him about it over the last year that even though he was convinced she was just trying to get at him, it still bothered him. Just a bit.

 “Ugh! Sometimes,” she admitted. “When you’re trying. When you’re not asking how good you are at sex, and am I gonna cum. Because I’m good at faking it.” She got out.

 “Liar!” He got out and followed her to the elevator. “No, you didn’t.”

 “Yes, I did. Not…recently. “

They got in the elevator. Jeff touched her lower back and massaged it gently. “Well, good.”

 Britta continued, thinking out loud, “I mean, this is what it is, but I still like to talk and have feelings when I’m sleeping with someone. It’s important to have an emotional connection- it’s so much better when you connect that way. “ The elevator doors opened.

 “It’s almost 2:30 in the morning, Britta, I’ll try to remember that.” He opened the door for her, and she threw her bag on the couch. “And I won’t ask again.” He regretted opening up that can of worms.

“No. This is what I’m talking about. Being honest and open. I’m glad you asked. I’m sorry I made fun of you in front of Troy,” she kissed him in apology and unbuttoned his shirt.

Jeff caught his breath, “If I’m being honest and open, I want to make you say it.” He helped her pull her t-shirt off over her head, and moved his lips to suck on her neck.

“Say what?” she asked, fumbling to remove his belt.

“Say I’m good at sex,” he teased, rolling her bra straps off her shoulders, and kissing her arms.

“Ha!” she laughed. “No, you have to keep earning it. I don’t want you to get lazy.” She worked his fly down, and Jeff stepped out of his pants, and Jeff in turn helped Britta pull off her shoes, as she fumbled out of her jeans. Britta sat on the end of the couch, pulling Jeff between her legs and they kissed. She pinched his nipples hard, and he grinned.

“I forgot how short you are without heels,” he confessed.

“Hey!” 

“It’s cute. I’m so much taller than you.” He smiled and kissed her again, reaching his arms around her back to unhook her black lace demi bra, which fell to the floor. Her panties had matched. He didn’t recognize them; this was his favorite part of their new secret relationship. They seemed to know each other so well, but there were still fun surprises.

Britta stood and kissed him back. She reached for her bag and pulled out a condom, putting it in Jeff’s hand. “Number eleven, you said?” She turned around and let him playfully bite her ear. This was one of her favorites. She bent over the sofa and reached back to help Jeff guide himself into her. Jeff moved his hands to cup her breasts, while kissing and licking her shoulder blades. Britta felt an orgasm rippling through her already. “Damnit. Yes, yes, you’re good.”

* * *

 The alarm on Jeff’s phone woke them up way too early the next morning. He was grateful he had remembered to set it when they moved into the bedroom. He’d actually gone back out to the living room to get his phone from his pants after Britta remembered they’d have to get up for Shirley’s son Ben’s christening. Then, naked in bed, they started kissing again, and wound up staying up for another hour doing a number seven. Now at 11 am, it seemed impossibly early to get out of bed, but they knew they had to get moving. Britta wasn’t waking up voluntarily. Jeff moved his leg between hers and his right hand reached under the sheet to her bare bottom, drawing circles on it with his fingers. “Hey, Britt.” She took a deep intake of breath, but didn’t open her eyes.

“Nmmmmm. Hey.” She still sounded sleepy.

 “We’ve gotta get up. Shirley’s christening. You’ve gotta get clothes from your place,” he reminded her. It started at two, but they both knew time would go fast.

“Nmmmmm. No. Five minutes,” she bargained with him. She moved her legs to draw his shin deeper between them. He inched closer.

“Five minutes, right.” He wanted to kiss her forehead, but restrained himself. She looked adorably grumpy. “Are you being open and honest about five minutes”” he joked. Her eyes squinted open.

 “Yes. And that feels good. Keep doing that,” she gently demanded.

 “What? This?” He realized she was referring to his butt massage.

 “Yes.”

 Jeff moved even closer to her, so only a couple inches separated their bodies, lying side by side. He dug in deeper on his massage, but moved his fingers to the other cheek, then up to her lower back, then up her spine, vertebrae by vertebrae. Britta’s eyes had closed again, but her adorably grumpy expression had changed to a mildly satisfied one, and he could tell she was enjoying it. She locked their legs together. He was trying not to become aroused; he had only intended on waking Britta up and didn’t want her to think that’s what he was angling for. Fortunately for him, when his fingers reached Britta’s neck, he got both. Her eyes opened and she leaned forward, kissing him, and sucking his bottom lip. Jeff lost the battle fighting his erection; the tip grazed Britta’s bare stomach. “Five more minutes?” he whispered to her. She nodded and climbed on top of him, tucking her messy hair behind her ears as she leaned down for another kiss.

* * *

Considering their morning delay, they kept surprisingly good time. Britta ran down the street and grabbed coffee and breakfast sandwiches while Jeff showered, and they ate quickly before leaving for Britta’s apartment, since Jeff didn’t let food in his car. “Are you coming up?” Britta asked.

“I’ll wait here,” Jeff decided.

“Are you avoiding my friend? I’ve gotta shower; I’m gonna be a little while,” she reminded him.

“I’ll wait.”

“You are so stubborn sometimes!” Britta tried to be fast. She wasn’t looking forward to this christening, but there was no avoiding it. On an inspired whim, she opened her jewelry box and grabbed a joint and her lighter to toss in her bag. When she got back downstairs, Jeff was playing Bejeweled on his phone. “I can’t believe you’d rather sit in your car than sit on my couch and have a conversation with a stranger for a few minutes. Oh wait, I can.” She pulled a tie out of her bag and handed it to him. “You left this at my place.”

“Oh, thanks. I forgot to ask.” He put it in the glove compartment and started the car. “You think this is going to be an all-day thing?” he wondered.

“Yep,” she shook her head, dejectedly. “I really hate these things. It’s so unethical, too, to do this to a baby. To sign their life away to an organization that’s going to dictate the norms of what he’s going to do for the rest of his life and he has no say because he can barely talk. At least I was 8, even if I didn’t really have a choice.”

Jeff’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Who baptizes kids when they’re 8? Pierce’s cult? That’s an odd number.” He looked at her as much as he could while concentrating on the road.

Britta looked at her lap, and quietly revealed something she hadn’t discussed in years. “Mormons.” Jeff burst out laughing. “You asshole.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t expecting that. It’s nervous laughter. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry.” He tried desperate to stifle his laughter. “Oh. So…are you…Mormon?”

“No. My parents are. Is there anything about that religion you think I would buy into? We aren’t…we don’t talk to each other anymore. We did for awhile after I stopped going to church with them, but we’d have huge fights, and after I left I think they were encouraged to stop talking to me anyway.”

“So you don’t talk to any of them?” Jeff asked. He wanted to know more, but he didn’t want to pry too hard. He knew what that felt like.

“I mean, my whole family, for generations, is this hardline religion that thinks women should be subservient to men and basically just exist to have babies, and you should be married by the time you’re 20, and the whole belief system is ludicrous. My brothers aren’t so…zealous..but still, we’re not close,” she answered.

“So, did you, like, get excommunicated?” he wanted to know.

“Maybe? Knowing my parents, they lied and told everyone I dropped out of school to get married. They would actually be proud of that! I didn’t bother to get un-Mormoned, I don’t even know if you can?” she wondered. “I mean,” she laughed, “they just baptize you again when you’re dead, you know?”

He was relieved to hear her laugh again and joined in. “Yeah, I heard about that.” He wanted to pay her back for revealing something so personal. “My Mom’s Protestant. She used to take me to church almost every Sunday when I was a kid, even when she had just worked all night and was exhausted. I hated it. She gave up when I was a teenager, but I still remember trying to get out of it Sunday mornings.”

“Speaking of your Mom,” she remembered, “guess who friended me on facebook!”

“No! No, you won’t!” Jeff was horrified.

“I cannot wait until throwback Thursday to see some Jeffy baby pictures,” she teased.

“Well, she’s still kinda religious,” he warned, “so you’re probably gonna be liking some Jesus quotes, too.”

“Probably? Are you not friends with your Mom?”

“No! Why would I do that to myself? I swear Britta, you better be kidding…” he warned, as he pulled into the church. It was a small, but devout congregation. A sign in front read ‘Church Is A Hospital For Sinners, Not A Museum For Saints.’ Britta read it and rolled her eyes. She dug in her bag and pulled out the joint, presenting it to Jeff.

“We’re early…we could make this a little more tolerable?” she enticed.

“First of all, not in my car! Second of all, I don’t smoke- I care about my body.”

“You know this is going to be a dry christening?” she reminded him.

He visibly acquiesced. “But not in the car!” They got out and leaned against the passenger’s side of the Lexus. She taught him how to pull in the smoke while lighting the cigarette; it was kind-of sexy.

“I can’t believe you’ve never done this before.” Britta watched in fascination as he took his first pull.

“This is the great thing about being an adult, Britta. We don’t have to worry about all this anymore,” he said, gesturing to the parking lot and church. “Let Shirley have this; we know we’re right. Reason wins.”

She took the joint back from him. “I could totally rearrange that sign…we should do that!” She was getting excited, and took a moment to think as she inhaled. “Oh! ‘Church Is A Waste Of Time.’ It works! Too easy.”

Jeff looked over to the sign and did the spelling in his head. “Damn, it does work! How’d you do that?”

She passed him the joint back. “This is what I’m saying. Years of experience. Real anarchy!“ She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not gonna do it; it’s Shirley’s day." 

He didn’t see community vandalism as real anarchy, but gave her this one. “Yeah, good call. Oh, shit…” he hastily handed her back the joint.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, and while she was saying it, she spied Pierce walking towards them. “Where’d he come from?”

“Around the corner.”

Britta threw the joint down and stomped it out with her shoe, but it was too late; Pierce was already too close. The bigger problem was what he’d make of Jeff and Britta together. 

“Smoking, Britta?” Pierce winked. “Don’t worry, I’m down with it. Got any more?”

“No, Pierce, all out.” she told him, honestly, but regretting having let go of the joint.

“Did you carpool? Why didn’t anyone ask me? And why is no one here yet? I thought this started at 1? I was getting ready to leave.” Pierce admitted.

Jeff and Britta started to speak at the same time, but Jeff beat her to it. “Britta’s got a flat last night, so I gave her a lift. And this starts at 2. Look, there’s someone.” A car of Bennett family members pulled into their side of the lot. “And...why is Annie with a policeman? Let’s go over there.”

“Oh, no, Jeff!” Britta instinctively grabbed his arm. “I know what that is...Annie’s dating a cop!”

“What?” Pierce and Jeff both acted shocked.

“I know! She met him at work.” Britta delighted in the rare occasion of having gossip before anyone else.

“Well, let’s go over there and introduce ourselves,” said Pierce, as he adjusted his tie and made his way over.

“Britta,” Jeff panicked. “We can’t meet a cop. We’re...high right now.”

She laughed. “You’re fine. You’re, like, 35 years old, you’re in a, what, $5,000 suit? And we’re about to go to church, it’s not gonna cross his mind. Grown up benefits.”

Jeff didn’t seem convinced. After Annie introduced them to Rob, who was dropping Annie off after a lunch date, it was the quietest Jeff had been in the entire time Britta had known him, which she found utterly endearing.

* * *

 

The baptism went by more quickly than Britta and Jeff had been dreading, and they found themselves somewhat enjoying the party back at Shirley’s house. As always, there were plenty of baked goods, which they made a beeline for as soon as they arrived. “This is the best brownie I’ve ever eaten in my life,” Jeff swore. “I don’t even really like brownies.”

“Ben’s getting so big,” Britta commented. They watched him play a simple clapping game on the floor with his brothers. “And he’s still so cute.” The baby looked up at her, and she waved and made goofy faces at him. Jeff winced, and she playfully hit his arm. “He’s a baby, you’re supposed to make silly faces.”

“Why?” He got doing it in private, but not in public.

“I don’t know, it’s good for them. They develop...face awareness. Shut up. They like it.”

“Just to be clear,” he dug at her, “ this is what you’re studying right now, right? Still pulling that A? Or does the professor give out smiley and frowny faces?”

“Yes! I am. It’s good for their development. And it’s good to not ignore babies. Duh-doy. It turns them into broken people. You should probably be upfront about with whoever you accidentally knock up that you’re emotionally repressed around babies, too.”

“Oh, good. You made this about me. You do deserve that A.” Jeff smiled.

“Two more weeks,” she replied, gratefully.

“We should celebrate,” he suggested. “It’s hard to hang out anyway, when you’re working all the time. You know, you should take the day off when this class ends and we can, you know, go to a concert or something?”

She considered the idea, and it sounded great. “Yeah, that’s good. Pick a thing and let me know.”

“Okay, great.” He’d go online and try to find something tomorrow.

“So you have a meeting this week to be a lawyer again already?” she remembered.

“Kinda. I’m trying not to think about it too much. I’m having lunch Wednesday with this guy Kevin I knew but didn’t work with a lot. He seems like a good guy, and he says he liked my work. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but this would be amazing,” he confessed.

“Well, good luck. I hope it goes really well.” Britta held his forearm. “Do you want to catch up Thursday and download? Text me and grab lunch and let me know how it went?”

“Yeah,” Jeff considered. “That would be great.” He felt better already.

 


	5. Principles of Human Nutrition

Jeff had good news to share with Britta, but she'd cancelled their lunch and he had to wait an extra few days to see her. She was exhausted, having covered an extra shift, and swamped with schoolwork. She'd decided she needed to take care of Daniel's lethargy once and for all, and had spent a whole morning with him at the vet getting him antidepressants, and then a good thirty minutes each subsequent morning getting him to take his Fluoxetine. At least Kaho had moved on to crash with another friend. Britta's assignments were due every Sunday night at midnight, and she knew by Wednesday she would need to cancel with Jeff to buy herself some extra time, but she didn't want to take his mind off his interview. She waited until Thursday morning to ask if they could reschedule for brunch on Sunday, just telling him that she had too much reading to do. He was disappointed, but texted back like it was no big deal. 'Totally. Don't study too hard!'

  
The truth was, he wanted to talk to her. And when his Mom called him Thursday night to tell him she was putting her house, where Jeff had been raised, up for sale, he stared at Britta's number in his contacts twice, overwhelmingly tempted to call her, before berating himself and pouring himself a Scotch. With his drink in his hand, he sat back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. He didn't need Britta; he had other friends. Sure, he was attracted to her; he always had been. He missed her in a completely non-sexual way and he was starting to realize this. It was frustrating the hell out of him.

  
He had nothing to do Saturday. His class was an easy pass. The exams were basically open book, and he'd figured out that if he had the online versions of the plays and Cliff Notes open on his iPad while he was taking the tests on his laptop, it went faster than searching the print versions for the answers. He headed to JCrew, where he picked up some casual button down shirts, including one with especially soft fabric he decided he'd wanted to wear for brunch with Britta. She didn't always appreciate how well he dressed, or so she claimed, but she did seem to like when his clothes felt soft (and luxurious). He stopped by Whole Foods on his way home to pick up some groceries, but it seemed to take forever, because he was bored and didn't have a list. While he was waiting in line, he texted Abed and Troy and made plans to see a movie at their apartment. Then he had to quickly drop his groceries at his place, and stop by the 7-11 for Twizzlers and Milk Duds (as was demanded for his contribution) and beer (as Jeff insisted). It was an okay night watching Meatballs, but mostly Jeff was distracted, weighing options of places to take Britta the next morning.

* * *

  
It was just after ten o'clock. Britta answered the door in glasses with her hair in a messy bun, not even close to being dressed. She was barefoot, wearing a Greendale Harvest Festival t-shirt and short cotton shorts. The apartment was a wreck. Jeff squinted and looked at his watch. "Uh, did we say ten?"

  
"Shit! I'm sorry. I forgot. I mean, I didn't forget we were having breakfast, I just didn't realize what time it was," Britta apologized.

"Is everything okay? Are you sick?" Jeff wondered, mildly concerned.

"I'm fine. Actually, I suck." She gestured for him to come in and take a seat on the sofa. "Do you want some coffee?" She glanced over to the kitchen where'd she'd made a pot earlier. There was still a tiny bit left from what she'd been guzzling down that morning.

"Maybe later. Why do you suck?"

"I went to bed last night...this morning...and I couldn't fall asleep...and I just kept thinking, what's wrong? I mean," she gestured around the messy apartment, "obviously, I've been a little busy. But the cat got his meds…" Jeff made a face, that she ignored. "and I did all my assignments for the week. Rent isn't due until later this week. I ran down all the things that could be wrong, and it suddenly hit me that these response questions I had to do had a second page I totally forgot about."

  
"Oh, so, that's...this?" Jeff assumed she had gotten up to finish them.

  
"I thought there were just a few of them, so I should just go back to sleep and wake up early, because I still want to do this with you, I still want to have a life...but it's been a couple hours, I guess, and it's so fucking involved. And I'm so mad at myself." Britta brought her hands to her face, and pushed her hair back, obviously stressed.

  
"Why are you mad? It's not due yet. You caught it, you'll be fine. And I'm...really, really impressed you're working so hard and getting this all done," Jeff admitted.

  
"Of course I'm mad! If I didn't remember, I could've been at work and handed in an incomplete assignment and gotten an F. I know I sound like Annie, but I haven't gotten a lot of As in my life. I didn't realize how important this was to me. I want to stop being a fuck up." Britta pushed her glasses up.

  
"So, first of all, you're not being a fuck up. Second of all, are those real?" Jeff came over and took her glasses.

"Yes," she grabbed them back and put them back on.  
"Okay, third of all, calm down. I'll make you some more coffee and you can finish whatever you need to get done. Pancakes?" he offered.

Britta was surprised, and cautiously grateful. "Um, yeah?"

Jeff wandered into the kitchen, assessed its sorry state, and reconsidered his proposal. "On second thought, I'll be right back. I'm going to get us some takeout, since you probably don't have any clean pans anyway," he teased. Britta shook her head in defeat and he worried it was too early in the morning to rag on her. "See you in twenty."

* * *

 

When Jeff got back to Britta's, she was dressed and had her laptop on her lap in the living room, with a pen in her mouth and her textbook and notes sprawled out beside her. He unloaded coffee, eggs, pancakes and fruit from the takeaway bag, and she took a break to eat with him on the floor. "Thank you," she said.

  
"No prob."

"Really, this is amazing. Is that a new shirt?" she noticed. "It looks nice with your eyes." Realizing what she'd said, Britta got embarrassed and took another plastic forkful of scrambled egg.

"Oh, thanks. Yeah, I just picked up some stuff for the new year," he said, casually. He noticed a new cat toy on the floor next to him and pulled it over. "Someone's getting spoiled?"

"Shoot! Yes." Britta abandoned her plate mid-bite and went to grab Daniel's meds from above the kitchen cabinet. She sat down on the kitchen floor. "Can I have some of your bacon?"

"What?"

"It's not for me," she told him, impatiently, "It's for Daniel. He won't take his medicine. I have to kind-of force it down him, and it helps if I hide it in food. I mean, not really, but I obviously don't have any meat in the apartment, and maybe it won't be such an ordeal today." She beckoned the animal over to her lap and held him tightly, while Jeff offered her half a piece of bacon. She expertly undid the prescription cap and fished out a pill that she attempted to wrap in a portion of the meat. Then the cat fought her as she made him take it. "I really hate this."

"Bacon?"

"Force-feeding him. And bacon." She answered.

"What's wrong with him? He was fine last time," Jeff asked.

"I finally put him on antidepressants because he was so mopey. It's kinda helping, I guess...they say it can be a few weeks before you can see any improvement. I know as a therapist," Jeff coughed, "I should be especially open to this, but he really fucking hates this." Jeff's coughed had accidentally turned into him choking on his coffee, going down the wrong pipe. "This is serious Jeff, he could die!"

"Well, ordinarily I'd be really skeptical, but I think it's nice."

Britta got up to throw out the remaining bacon and wash the meat residue off of her hands. "Hey!" she remembered. "Your interview. You didn't text or anything. I thought you'd call me? What happened?"

Jeff was surprised, and glad she brought it up. He took a sip of now lukewarm coffee before answering her. "I got it. "

She ran back from the kitchen to hug him. "That's great. Congratulations. This is what you wanted, right?"

"Yeah, definitely. I mean, I only have classes three days a week next semester. I can work Tuesdays and Thursdays. And it's time, you know. I've been out of the game for three years, and it feels like forever. I was getting worried I was losing it. My touch, my connections. And god, you know, I need a new car, I haven't put anything in my 401k in years…" he caught a glimpse of her laptop on the sofa and realized he was going on about himself while she was probably counting the minutes until she needed to be at work. Still...her huge blue eyes never left his face while he was talking, and he couldn't help himself from unburdening himself to her. "It's not what I thought it was...it's not DUIs and workplace accidents…"

Britta's eyes lit up. "That's amazing. Jeff, you're better than that. I'm sure you're a great lawyer; you're so passionate and persuasive when you want to be. If you can use that power for good-"

"They're divorce attorneys."

Britta's face scrunched. It wasn't pretty. She took a moment to process. "What? But…"

"Yeah...I guess business is booming now that the recession is ending and people have more money to get divorced. It's a huge business. They're swamped, and he was telling me how much they really need me; I'll probably be working a lot of overtime, too. And as long as I don't make any huge mistakes, come January, I have a full time job with them."

"But is that what you want?" Britta was confused, and disappointed.

Jeff hesitated. "No. Hey, it's better than what I was doing before." Secretly, Jeff knew that ultimately they were the same, but he needed to believe this was an improvement. Britta was quiet. She pushed around the remaining pancake in the foil tray.

"You're okay with helping people get divorced? That's gotta be depressing. Especially since you had such a bad experience with it. You haven't even had closure with your Dad; do you think this is a good idea for you right now, personally?"

"Britta, why are you always bringing that up? You know what, I think you're projecting. Did you learn about that in psychology, yet? "

"Jesus, I just care about your feelings. What the hell, Jeff?"

"You know, when you get upset I can see the veins in your neck?" He meant it as a tension diffuser but quickly realized that was not happening.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that." He grabbed her hand and held it. She had long fingers, and her skin was soft. "Really, I didn't. No, I don't want to be helping people get divorced. It sucks. There's no such thing as a non-ugly divorce. It gets dirty. And the mark of a good lawyer is obliterating the other person, even if the other person has kids. I...was thinking about Shirley. Maybe there's a line there somewhere and when I make partner I can influence what cases we take, but there are gonna be a few ugly years." Britta nodded. She removed her hand from his and started to clean up their takeout, placing the empty containers into the plastic bag they arrived in. "Britta, I'll do that. You should study."

"We can talk, if you're upset?" she offered.

"I'm not upset. I'm glad I have a job. This firm's huge; it'll be great. Their Christmas party last year was in Vegas." He looked at her to make sure she understood the implications. "Vegas! Fuck the Lexus, by Christmas I'm getting a Jaguar."

"Woohoo." Britta mocked his enthusiasm and settled back on the couch as he cleaned up.

"Do you even have any clean clothes?" he asked, lifting a bra and a t-shirt off the armchair.

"My day off's tomorrow." She didn't even look up.

"You can still do laundry at my place." He hesitated. "I'm doing laundry today, I can just take it with me."

This got her attention. "Put my bra down, please!"

"Come on, Britta. It's not like I haven't seen everything," he joked. Though privately he realized it was true, only as the words came out of his mouth. They had known each other a long time. She frowned, and considered anything embarrassing that might be hiding in her laundry bag. Maybe she should call him on it? Let him do her laundry...what's the worst that could happen? She'd get a mess of unfolded clothes back in her giant laundry bag tomorrow...at least they'd be clean. She never ironed anyway.

"Just for that, you win. You can do it all." She got up and retrieved the bag from her bedroom, stuffing castoff clothes into it all the way back before setting it at Jeff's feet.

"Fine," Jeff said. "I offered. Remember this when I need a favor." He grabbed his keys and the laundry.

"Thank you for breakfast. And for this." She gestured to the bag, still somewhat skeptical that it was going to get done.

"Anytime. Good luck with class."

"Congratulations on the job, really. I'm happy for you. I want you to have what you want. And I'm sorry about brunch. I know diner coffee on the floor isn't the same as unlimited bloody marys." She meant it.

"Thanks, and don't worry about it. I'll see you later," Jeff promised. It was a somewhat awkward goodbye, and they both knew it. That spring, as purely friends, they would have hugged goodbye. Now a kiss felt forced and a hug felt inadequate. Britta went in for a hug and kissed him on his cheek, lingering. Emboldened, Jeff moved his lips towards hers, intending to kiss her fully on the lips, but Britta moved her head awkwardly, and he wound up only catching the side of her mouth. "Bye."

* * *

 

  
Britta was not expecting to see Jeff again that day, so she was startled when he arrived back at her door right when she was leaving for work.  
"Hey! Laundry, as promised. You didn't think I'd do it, did you?" he teased.

  
"Wow! No. I mean, thanks. This is great. This saves me half my day tomorrow," she marveled.

"Did you finish?" Jeff asked.

"Yeah, but sorry, I've gotta go to work," she explained, and rolled her shoulders back a few times. She caught him looking at the movement and explained, "my back is killing me from leaning over all day."

Jeff held up a hand. "Back massage?"

"Yeah, please. Seriously, though, Jeff, I don't have time to have sex right now. I've gotta be at work in half an hour."

He stopped. "Uh, sex-crazed much?"

"Soh-rry! For knowing you well, much. And really, a back massage would be great right now." She turned around and he kneaded her shoulders.

"Mmmmm. And if you can find Daniel, that would be amazing."

"Hiding?"

"I guess. He hates me ever since I took him to the vet. Ohhhhh, yes. Why are you so good at this?" She wondered aloud.

"Biceps."

"Mmm-hmmm." She enjoyed the massage for another couple of minutes. "I gotta go, but thanks." She turned around and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Thank you."

An idea popped in Jeff's head. God, he hoped she didn't take this the wrong way. "I could stay for a few minutes and look for him?"

"Really? I'm sure he's fine. He's just not in his usual places and it's weirding me out." She looked at her phone. "I've really gotta go. It locks behind you. Thanks!" She waved and left.

* * *

 

When Britta got home, she was less exhausted than usual. Though the afternoon had been frenetic, it felt incredible to finish her assignment. Her final week of class had a much lighter workload in store, and it was nice to have someone helping her at home. Usually guys or friends crashing just made her life more complicated. On the drive home, she joked to herself that she could see the appeal of living with someone if she could get pancakes and massages every day. Though clearly, she knew, that was not how relationships worked.

She unlocked the door and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. "Aghhhh!"

She looked around; the place was totally clean. Not spotless, but immaculate compared to when she left. The dishes were not just done, but put away. She had a glass in her hand, but put it back into the cabinet, no longer thirsty, but curious to explore. Was Jeff still here? She tiptoed to the bedroom and cracked open the door, peeking in. Daniel shot out, startling her. When she regained her composure, she tiptoed in, fully expecting to see Jeff asleep in bed. It was quiet; Jeff snored lightly sometimes, but she still thought he would be there. She made her way over to the bed in the dark and felt lightly with her palm for his body beneath the sheets. No one there. Britta was surprised that she felt so disappointed. Though it would have been a lot easier to turn on the light and change, she left it off. She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and remove her makeup, then crawled into bed in the dark.

* * *

 

Jeff felt great when he left Britta's the previous night. It had taken way longer to clean her place than he thought it would. He even needed to order Chinese food because it was taking so long. He had a regular service at his place; in a way it felt good to be doing something so basic as cleaning an apartment again. Even though he almost gagged at the curdled milk in the cereal bowls in the sink, and drew the line at cleaning her bathroom beyond some cursory Clorox wipe wiping. But he woke up in the middle of the night and was suddenly nervous. What if she was creeped out by his sudden enthusiasm? Britta didn't particularly like surprises. He struggled to get back to sleep and wondered if this was something he would need to apologize for?

* * *

  
He was awoken by his phone the next morning; he saw right away it was her. He took a deep breath before he answered it. "Hey."

"Hey."

"How's it going?" He heard her light breathing and looked at his watch. It was noon. He had fallen back asleep after all.

She started. "I think someone broke into my apartment last night...but I didn't get robbed."

"Yeah, well, what would anyone steal? A Pixies poster? Cat food?"

Her voice got small. "That's one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me."

Jeff hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. He let it out, and smiled. "Just trying to be a good friend. Everyone needs a break, right?"

"Yeah, you are. You're a really good friend." She paused, contemplative. "I have to remind myself sometimes how much you've changed. How you're not the same guy I took Spanish with three years ago who just wanted to hit on me."

"Do you think I've changed?" he asked.

"Yeah. Do you think I am? The same?" she wondered.

"I think I just know you better. All of you. And it's made me a better person." He wished she were here instead of on the phone so he could see her face. "I didn't poke around your medicine cabinet, or anything."

"Ick! I didn't think you did," she laughed.

"I forgot to tell you, I got those tickets to celebrate our classes ending. Did you take Thursday off?"

"Yes!"

"Great, I'll pick you up at 6."

"Where are we going?"

"Lawyer perks. Guess who got tickets to Arcade Fire?" he bragged.

"Nice! Yes!"

"There's that new Ramen place up on Jackson Street? I tried to get Abed to go in there with me the other day; he was not into it…but it looks great," he proposed.

"I'm in. Yeah, six. That's a good way to end the semester. See you then."

* * *

They had an amazing time at the concert in Denver. At no point did they call it a date though. It was friends celebrating being kick ass at summer class. But Jeff noticed how Britta's dark blue summer dress, which she paired with her usual low cut high heeled boots, brought out her eyes, and that she was wearing a new shade of lipstick. And Britta told Jeff that she liked how soft his new shirt was when he brushed up against her during dinner. For all the women at the concert, Jeff didn't seem to be noticing them. He was more concerned with 'accidentally' brushing up against Britta's arms, which she seemed to be enjoying.

They made out in his car in the parking lot for a full half hour before he drove her home, rationalizing out loud that the traffic leaving the place was going to be crazy anyway. Britta invited him up on pretense for another drink, and they stood in her kitchen kissing for what felt like fifteen minutes. Abandoning the idea of the drink, Britta nudged them to her bedroom, where they gently fell on to the bed, and continued making out like teenagers. But better than teenagers, because they knew what they were doing. Jeff had almost forgotten how great it was just to kiss someone. Their tongues moved slowly and explored each others' mouths. He could hear and feel her breathing, and it made him more attracted to her. His fingers explored her collarbone but made no attempt to remove her dress. One of Britta's hands was caressing Jeff's stubble and playing with his hair, while the other was kneading the muscles in his upper back. They were getting warm from their own heat, though in their ardor, Britta had neglected to turn on the A/C. She stopped them reluctantly to turn it on, and climbed on top of Jeff to resume their makeout session. His hands moved up her dress, and Britta bit and sucked on his bottom lip. She looked into his eyes and admitted, "I like being with you. It's really comfortable…"

  
Jeff didn't know what to say. He resisted the strong urge to look away. "It is. You're a great kisser." She smiled and kissed him again. "I missed you."

"What?" She really couldn't make out what he'd said; it had been half-muffled in her mouth.

This was a good a time as any to tell her. She wanted him to be open and honest. Besides, deep down he knew if he kept everything too cool again this wouldn't last long. "I missed you. Last year. After we "broke up." We stopped hanging out, just the two of us. I'm glad we're still friends because I want to be around you." He couldn't look her in the eyes anymore, so he focused on her shoulder, his fingers tracing down the strap of her dress.

She sat back and put her hands on his chest. "I'm glad we're still friends, too. That was, probably, starting to get a little bigger than either of us was ready for. Maybe it's good we didn't hang out so much last year. We had a little break, and now we're more mature, as people. I mean, who knew it would lead back to this?" she laughed.

He laughed with her. "Maybe we'll never be able to stay apart."

"I didn't want to bring this up now, but, do you think we should keep this between us...again?" she suggested.

"Yeah, I mean, we're not getting married! I for one, don't want Shirley up in our business about premarital sex!"

"Ha," Britta's laugh was weaker this time as she contemplated the reactions of the group.

"We can tell them if you want," he told her. "I liked it when it was private. It was fun; we didn't have to worry about people being judgey, or trying to define us."

"Yes, defining us. Exactly. That's why we should keep it to ourselves," Britta decided.

"I can't believe we have to go back next week already." Jeff looked up at her. Her hair was up, but large strands had come undone since they got to the apartment, and he had kissed her lipstick off. God, she was gorgeous. He got a tight feeling in his chest and had a terrible feeling that he was falling in love with her.

Britta took a moment to massage his scalp. "See! There's another reason I'm glad we took a break. I like your hair better now. It's not crispy anymore."

Jeff smiled. "Oh, we're calling it a break now?" He kissed her. "Okay."

* * *

  
Britta snuggled her face into Jeff's side when she woke, squinting against the sunlight that was peeking in through the sides of the curtains. He turned to face her and brought his arm around her torso, pulling her into him. They lay like that for a few minutes, half-sleeping, half-listening to each other breathe until Britta broke the quiet. "Good morning."

"Morning."

"Coffee?" she asked, but half-hoped he'd volunteer to make it. Not in a romantic sense, or for the sake of shared household responsibilities, but in the sense that Britta was always super tired in the mornings these days.

"You want to go out?" he asked, as sleepily as her.

"No, not really." She propped herself up on her elbow and watched him curled into the pillow. He was really sweet when he was sleeping. And she thought he was getting more handsome the older they got. Britta leaned closer to him and noticed more fine lines around his eyes, which somehow she found very attractive on him. She ran her fingers through his hair, which was currently in a wild state after their long night, and kissed his lips. "I'll find something. Wait here."

Jeff woke himself up enough to find his t-shirt and boxers by the time Britta got back with coffee and cereal. She moved her laptop to the bed and they settled in to watch Archer. "I think you like this show for entirely the wrong reasons," she accused him.

"Pssh," he deflected, taking another bite of Britta's Trader Joe's cereal, which was annoyingly good.

When they'd marathoned a few, Britta reluctantly got out of bed to shower and Jeff started to leave.

"Jeff, wait. I know we kinda joked about this, but tomorrow's Labor Day...are we...?" She didn't want to invite herself to his Mom's barbeque, but she thought it was weird he hadn't brought it up. He probably wasn't going, she realized.

"Oh, Britta. You don't have to do that. It's not gonna be fun." Jeff was committed to going, but he didn't want to make Britta suffer. And with the real estate drama, he wasn't sure he wanted her to be a part of that. "I shouldn't have asked you to lie for me with my Mom, but thank you. She obviously likes you. But I am dreading this. It's the last 'family gathering' I do. Ever."

"You don't have to go by yourself. I like your Mom. And I can be your alibi if you need to leave early," she offered.

"Why? It's going to be a nightmare." He watched her. "Noon?"

"Noon."

Jeff kissed her goodbye. "Your funeral."

He was already down the hall when she opened the door again and shouted, "Ooh! Can this be the favor I owe you?"

He kept walking. "I take it back. You're the worst."


	6. Principles of Property Management

"You Got Lucky" blared from the stereo as Jeff semi-consciously passed the turn for Britta's apartment. He was fighting the urge to blow off going to his Mom's Labor Day barbecue and spend time with her new fiance Mark and his children, and apparently it had become so strong that he drove right past North 6th Street. Maybe it was a sign, he thought. But he soon realized he'd be spending the afternoon ducking calls from Britta and his Mom and whoever else, so he'd better just get it over with. At least with Britta he'd have someone to talk to, and an excuse to leave early. She answered the door holding a coffee cup and barefoot, but otherwise ready. _Toddlers and Tiaras_ was on the television, and she sat on the couch to watch as she put on her socks and boots. "Two...five minutes," she told him.

"You hate this," he reminded her, as he sat next to her to watch. "Didn't you yell at me for watching this last year?"

She briefly glared at him before turning back to the TV. "They gave one of these kids her own show. Seriously! The one with the Mountain Dew go-go juice. Honey Boo Boo. It's just wrong. This is how you become successful in America now. Exploit your children, have zero principles, train girls that they need to have no skills except how to shake it and wear too much makeup, and the cycle of patriarchy remains unbroken."

"And you'll totally watch it."

"No way. I'm drawing a line. It's too depressing," she swore. Jeff found the remote and mimed turning the television off. She sighed. "Until the commercial. There's this kindergartener who still has a pacifier and she freaks out when they take it away from her...it's messed up." He smiled and put the remote down.

* * *

They were almost to Doreen's house when Britta asked Jeff if he'd brought anything for the party. "Am I supposed to?" he asked.

"Yeah, you are. Right? That's how these things work, I assume. Like, cookies," she suggested.

"Cookies? Like, bake cookies?" He was skeptical.

"Wine, I don't know. It's your Mom." She pouted.

"Yeah, I guess, I didn't think about it. She didn't tell me to. Anyway, we're almost there."

"Which one?" she asked, referring to the houses on the tree-lined street.

"The white one with the cars in the driveway. Geez, there are a lot of people here. Why are there so many people here?" he wondered, concerned.

"The one with the 'Sold' sign on the lawn? Jeff, did you know your Mom was selling her house?"

Jeff found a parking spot on the street in front of the house and contemplated what to tell her. "Yeah, but she didn't tell me she actually sold it already. That was fast. I thought I had more time."

"What were you going to do?" Britta looked through her bag for a hair tie and pulled her hair back into a ponytail.

He removed his seatbelt and turned to her. "She's selling her biggest- her only- real asset? She's marrying this guy she barely knows-"

Britta cut him off, "Jeff, you're starting to sound a little…" He glared at her and she dialed it back. "...worked up."

"Why sell her house? She can at least rent it out? What's her fall back plan? This guy turns out to be a dirtbag and she just retired, she has to go back to work? She's an...older...woman, Britta….she needs to look out for herself."

Britta grabbed his hand, "You just have to trust people sometimes. And if she's taking a risk, then she thinks it's worth- ahhhh!" There was a heavy banging on the car window and an old woman pressed her face close to the glass. Jeff was equally startled, and pulled Britta towards him.

Jeff turned the car back on and rolled down the window. "Can I help you?"

The old woman pointed at him. "Doreen's son? Very nice car. Help me bring in my bag." Jeff nodded and rolled the window back up. Britta and Jeff both took a deep breath and laughed nervously.

"Whoa. Guess we have to go inside," Jeff whispered. He helped the woman, who turned out to be Mark's mother, bring in her bag, which turned out to contain a number of homemade pies. Even Jeff admitted it was heavy, and they looked good. She could give Shirley a run for her money in the baking department. Doreen greeted Jeff and Britta at the door and kissed them both on the cheek, announcing to everyone that her son Jeffy and his girlfriend were finally arrived. Jeff privately rolled his eyes to Britta, who sucked on her own lips in trying not to laugh, until she spied the puppy in the kitchen and lit up.

"Oh my god, Doreen, is that your new dog!" Britta effused. "What an adorable little puppy!" Jeff didn't even try to stop Britta from making a beeline for the kitchen, with the baby gate in place to keep it in its own little area.

"No, that's Jessica and her boyfriend's dog. Isn't he sweet? Our new dog's in the backyard. You want to pick him up? His name's James." The dog was a West Highland White Terrier, and he was just a few months old. Doreen handed Britta the puppy and Britta held him like a newborn against her chest and lit up.

"This is the cutest puppy I've ever seen! And it's like he only weighs two pounds." Jeff agreed; it was a really cute puppy, with fluffy white fur and soft little paw pads. He hesitantly petted a paw and the puppy lapped at his finger with a tiny tongue. Jessica and her boyfriend David climbed over the baby gate and introduced themselves. Britta offered to hand over James, who was starting to fall asleep, but they insisted she keep holding him.

"He was more than I wanted to spend," David admitted, "but he's really well behaved, and super cute." Jeff saw Britta flinch, and changed the subject.

"Can I help with anything?" he asked, drawing blanks on what else to discuss with these strangers.

"Sure," Jessica replied, brightly. "Want to chop these veggies?" She showed him what needed to be done to prep the crudites.

Jeff's Mom came in with a Mountain Dew for Jeff and a water for Britta. "I bought your favorite," she smiled, indicating the green soda. "There's grown-up drinks outside. And look what I made for dessert." She opened the fridge and pulled out a pie dish. She uncovered the foil and proudly announced, "chocolate peanut butter pie with Oreo crust. Mark was eyeing it all morning, but I told him you get the first piece."

"Aww, thanks Mom." Jeff went to hug her.

"I'm going to go check on the grill. Come outside when you're done. And before you leave, there's some boxes in your old room I want you to look at...let me know if you want to take them with you or if I can give them away. And I can get to know Britta better." She winked at Britta and left, with Jessica and David close behind, carrying chips.

"Don't judge me," Jeff asked, looking out the kitchen window to make sure the coast was clear before dumping the Mountain Dew down the drain. Britta shook her head. "I haven't liked this since I was 13. I guess it's...nice of her." Britta put the dog down to wash her hands and help him wash veggies. "I'd totally eat that pie though." He thought about sneaking a bite now. His Mom couldn't get mad, right? He was in his 30s, what could happen?

"This is kinda fun. Classic American Labor Day barbecue," Britta mused.

"It's weird though, right? We never did this when I was a kid. She never, okay, rarely, made me chocolate peanut butter pie."

"What's in your room? You still have stuff there?" Britta asked.

"I have no idea. I moved out when I was 18; stuff I left behind? Don't you have stuff in your old room?"

She shrugged. "Not really. I'll never see it again if I did. Probably just old drawings and schoolwork and stuff."

"Toys, pictures?" he added, absentmindedly.

Britta sighed. "Yeah, I don't have a lot of pictures."

"Sorry! I didn't realize. I don't either, if that means anything. It's probably old clothes I"ll never wear."

"Let's see?" she suggested, putting the knife in the sink. "Which way?"

He led her up the stairs to his small blue bedroom. He was startled to see that a lot of the house was empty already, including the walls. It was no different in his childhood room, with just a few full cardboard boxes in the middle of the dark blue carpet. Jeff knelt in front of the one closest to him but Britta dug in first. "Ooh- my brother had one of these! The Little Professor! You should totally keep this. It's awesome." It was a little calculator game for children with a professor face on it, and pretty adorable. They couldn't get it to turn on, but Britta insisted they take it anyway and figure out the battery situation later. Most of the rest of the items in the box were toy cars, baseball cards, children's records and little knick-knacks (a souvenir "JEFFREY" license plate from California), but Britta noticed Jeff put a Han Solo action figure and some GI Joes to the side. He noticed her looking at them.

"These are vintage. You can't throw these out," he explained. He looked around the room. He hadn't been in the house in years, but it was just hitting him that in all likelihood he'd never be in the house again. Britta knelt beside him and started massaging his shoulders. It was a strange petting motion. "I'm okay, Britta. You can stop that. Whatever it is you're doing." She dug in harder for a second and made those chopping motions that masseuses do to finish a massage, as if to make a point.

* * *

They only stayed for a couple of hours, but they almost enjoyed themselves. Mark's large family was very nice, and it wasn't the formal getting to know you affair that Jeff had dreaded. Instead, everyone was behaving as if they were the Brady Bunch, sharing duties like filling one another's plates and glasses, walking the dogs and taking the garbage out, and acted genuinely disappointed when Jeff and Britta had to leave so Britta could go to work. They didn't make it to dessert, so Doreen wrapped up the pie and insisted Jeff take it with them, walking them to the foyer.

"Did you go through those boxes?" Doreen asked.

"Yeah, I kept a couple things."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Like...some GI Joes, Star Wars stuff...why?"

"Oh, I was going to give it to the little boy next door," Doreen said.

"I have a friend who's really into vintage action figures," Jeff half-lied. "Listen, can I talk to you for a sec. You need to rethink selling this house."

"I had no idea you were so attached to it. You barely visit. You moved out as soon as you could." She wasn't being mean, but it was the truth.

"I'm thinking about you. I care about you. I know what you went through with my Dad, and I don't want to see you have to go through that again, working like crazy with no safety net, because someone took advantage of you. Keep the house. Don't live in it, but rent it out, have some security."

"Jeff, Mark is nothing like your father. Believe me, they're polar opposites."

"Do you know he's living here? In Colorado? You said he disappeared, but I found him. He's less than an hour away. Classic liar, totally untrustworthy, dirtbag. Doesn't that piss you off?"

She looked shocked for a moment, then her face went back to normal. "No. Jeff, if I was still upset about your father 30 years later, I'd be worried about me, too. But I moved on a long, long time ago. And the house closes next week." She kissed him on the cheek. "I love you, Jeffy. You're my good boy. Have a good week back at school. Don't waste time worrying about this. Focus on your girlfriend. You're going to be a good husband someday." She waved goodbye to Britta, now in the passenger seat with the pie on her lap, and shut the front door.

* * *

Somehow Jeff talked Britta into dropping by his apartment after her shift. She was glad he asked. They had spent hours together, but Britta knew she'd be thinking about him during her shift. She had started to think about Jeff a lot. Almost all the time. And in the mornings when it was just her at her apartment, she'd remember Jeff pressed up against her back in bed, or his arm slung around her waist with his breath on her neck, and it made it hard to wake up. She missed him; she had even in the last week uncharacteristically started to turn on the television at home for background noise. Britta rationalized that this was temporary, so she allowed herself these feelings. The first few weeks are always like this, she thought, even though this wasn't even really a relationship, and they'd been together well over a month. When she got out of work, it was almost 2:30 in the morning when she knocked on his door. He was already in sleep clothes (his boxers and soft-wash cotton t-shirt) and it looked like he'd been sleeping at some point during the night. Still, he was glad she came and he grabbed her as soon as he opened the door and wrapped her into a deep kiss. "How was work?" he asked.

"Meh. Good tips." She made a face, "I'm tired." She tossed her bag on the couch and went to grab a water from the fridge. "Were you sleeping?"

"On and off. Come to bed?"

"Be right there." She changed into the t-shirt she brought and brushed her teeth before climbing into bed with Jeff. They lay next to each other in the dark. "There's pie in your fridge," she reminded him.

"Hungry?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I realized tonight I just spent almost two months' rent on one statistics class. I'm gonna have to take an extra year at Greendale like Shirley and everyone else; this job's too many hours to do this and all my classes and try to apply for graduate programs."

"Why don't you cut back your hours a bit?" Jeff wondered.

"I thought about it. It's too good a gig. I hate myself for it a little. I started at Greendale so I wouldn't be a bartender my whole life; because I couldn't imagine being 50 years old and serving $2 PBRs. And now suddenly it feels like a safe option. I'm constantly going to be trying to catch up to everyone else. First I needed a bachelor's degree, which I don't even have yet, and now everyone's saying you need to have a Master's to get a job, or people are building their own app or starting their own business...everything in my body is telling me to drop this stat class, but I would feel like such a failure."

Jeff reached for her hand and lightly ran his thumb over her knuckles. "You got an A on the first extra class you tried to take, a class a real sober psych professor taught, while you started this new job. That's amazing. I got a B and I was basically cheating."

"I don't know if it counts. I didn't have my other classes…"

"It totally counts. And I…" he was about to make a joke about how even he passed Statistics, and that was before he started sleeping with the professor, but caught himself just in time. That would have definitely not ended well. "...I think you're too hard on yourself. But go with your gut. I wouldn't mind having you around Greendale awhile longer, actually." She was quiet. "Everyone goes through this, Britta. And at this point, everyone expects you to be a psychologist, so no one's going to let you not see it through."

"Ugh. I hate that I can go from feeling so good to so bad so fast. I guess I'm nervous; it seems like a big year. I don't know why. Nothing's really changing." She moved over a bit and settled on her side with her head on Jeff's chest, his arm wrapped around her. She yawned. "Your family's nice."

"That just sounds weird- it's just my Mom. It was like visiting someone else's family. Like we were watching someone else's family do family stuff. Isn't that weird- Jessica's Annie's age, but she seems so much younger."

"I guess. When's your Mom moving?"

"I don't know, couple weeks? She didn't care at all."

Britta looked up at him. "About what?"

Jeff realized what he said. "I talked to her about holding on to the house, and she didn't want to hear it. She said Mark's nothing like my father. And I reminded her what a lying piece of garbage my father was...is...and told her I found him, and he'd lied to her again. He probably owes her tens of thousands in alimony. They could never find him; he had visitation rights and he never came to visit and they told me it was because he'd shoved off and disappeared. You know where he is? Fucking Boulder, Colorado. And she doesn't care. At all."

"Jeff, you found your father?" Britta stayed with her head on Jeff's chest, but brought her arm around him, hugging him a little closer. He held her back, but she could feel him tense up.

"I found where he is. I haven't done anything about it. I can't believe she didn't care. He was such a dick to her. I was a little kid, and I still remember that, that should tell you something."

"How long have you known?" she gently pressed him.

"A couple weeks. A month. A couple months," he admitted.

"And you didn't call him?"

"I don't have anything to say to him. Especially now. Apparently that my Mom thinks it's not a big deal. So I guess that was kind-of pointless."

"Jeff, you have to call him. Or write to him. Let him know how you're feeling, even if it's just to let him know you think he's a dick. Psychology tells us that we can't bottle our emotions; they just come out in other ways," she implored him.

He rolled his eyes, even though he knew she probably couldn't see in the relative dark of the bedroom. "Britta, I know what's gonna come out of it. He decided 30 years ago he didn't want to be a Dad and clearly he's had the chance to find me, so why mess with that?" He tried to make it sound cut and dry, but it felt awful saying it out loud.

"You're different than your Mom. She knew your Dad, you couldn't have, you were a little kid. You didn't have any choices when they got divorced. Anyone would be upset to have someone treat them like that. And he's missing out. You're a great guy. Look how many people look up to you and care about you. If you want to talk to your Dad, you have nothing to worry about confronting him the way you might have when you were 8. You're literally so much bigger now," she smiled and squeezed his bicep for emphasis. "I know you don't want to be like Pierce and never have an honest conversation with your father, because if he dies before you get to talk to him, I bet that will feel worse. And I know you probably feel pretty bad right now."

"He's got another son."

"You have a brother. A real brother, not a step brother?"

"I guess. William Winger, Jr. There's no way he's not. Same address. 26 years old. So, he wasn't gone for long before that happened." Jeff was extra bitter about that. It was one thing for his father to have another child, but everything he was finding out on google was adding insult to injury.

"And he doesn't know about you either? He'd probably like to know he has a brother," Britta offered.

"I'm not saying your wrong…" Jeff started.

"You can say I'm right, it won't kill you."

"You're not totally wrong; I just don't think it's the right time." He suddenly didn't want to talk about it anymore. There was a thumping on the ceiling.

"What was that?" Britta asked.

"New neighbors. There's kids upstairs now, and they're nuts. What time is it? They run around all the time. I've got to move."

"Are you serious?" She couldn't see moving from a pretty nice apartment because of a couple of ceiling thumps she'd probably sleep through.

"My lease is up in October. I'm ready for something different. And yeah, there are a lot of kids in this building now. There are screamers down the hall. It sucks."

"You should get a puppy."

"What? What are you talking about? Are you sleep talking?" he chided her.

"You liked it. I saw you tickling that dog when your Mom was asking me about my hobbies. You were happy; you have a soft spot for puppies. You should get one."

"I still can't tell if you're kidding, but that's the last thing I need right now with a new job. That was a cute dog though. Totally a girls' dog, but cute," he asserted.

"What's a girls' dog?" she asked, annoyed.

"Anything under, like, 30 lbs. Fluffy, girl dogs."

"I can't believe you're being sexist about pets right now."

"It's not sexist, I would just get a dog I can't carry in a purse. We're not fighting about an imaginary dog at 3 in the morning." He kissed the top of her head, in semi-apology. She yawned again.

"I'm actually," she spoke through more yawns, "a little hungry." Britta slipped her hand under his t-shirt and made circles over his belly. They got out of bed and settled on the couch, eating chocolate peanut butter pie from the pie tin and talking about nothing until they fell asleep.


	7. Game Theory

"When I am a billionaire, I shall erect a 50-foot statue to commemorate _."

Britta looked at the options in her hand. They were playing Cards Against Humanity at Troy, Abed and Annie's apartment and her card choices were:

-A Windmill Full of Corpses

-Elderly Japanese Men

-Peeing a Little Bit

-Stephen Hawking Talking Dirty.

-Harry Potter Erotica.

-Home Video of Oprah Sobbing into a Lean Cuisine.

-Brown People.

-Pixelated Bukkake

-Getting Really High

-A Gassy Antelope

She was never playing some of these. She doubted anyone but her and maybe Jeff and Dean Pelton knew what bukkake was, and she was not going to be the one to explain it to Troy and Annie. And she would rather die than play the literal "Brown People" card in front of Shirley. This game had been a lot more fun when she was playing it high at Kaho's place last summer. It was really uncomfortable playing it sober with this group. She was never letting Troy and Abed suggest this again. Britta had never even read _Harry Potter_...what was the safest choice? Geez, this was unlike her. She went with "Getting Really High."

"Okay," Pierce decided, "this was easy. Who put in 'Road Head.'" The other options included "The True Meaning of Christmas, "Being a Motherfucking Sorcerer," and "Farting and Walking Away."

Jeff smirked and nodded. "What even is that?" Annie asked. Jeff stopped smiling, and Britta went into panic face.

Pierce opened his mouth and Jeff cut him off, "Pierce! Annie, we all have an early day tomorrow with going back to Greendale. Maybe we should wrap this game up?"

"Fine! You know I'm an adult- I'm just gonna Google it," she challenged him.

Britta got up to put her glass in the sink. "Anyone want a refill while I'm up?" she asked.

"Oh, we never put out dessert! I have new cinnamon rolls I'm gonna sell at Shirley's Sandwiches I brought for you to try!" Shirley got excited and went to the kitchen to bring out the food she brought. Britta detoured from the kitchen to the bathroom, and unbeknownst to her, Jeff followed her, with everyone else distracted with cleaning up the game and getting coffee and milk.

"Hey!" Britta was startled when she turned to close the door. Jeff squeezed in behind her and locked it.

"Hey! Ready to get out of here?" he asked. "My place?" He hooked his index finger around the belt loop of her jeans.

She bit her lip. "Yeah, that was getting painful. I was laughing at all the wrong places. When Annie thought an erection that lasts more than 4 hours was a good thing? And then I had to explain whiskey dick? And Shirley got mad at 'Crumbs All Over the Goddamn Carpet' for taking the lord's name in vain, but she was okay with that leprosy thing? I don't get her sometimes."

"Oh, I totally get her. That's why I had 'My Black Ass' in my hand the whole game."

"Oh my god! I had 'Brown People.' It is kinda racist. I didn't realize until we were playing. There are, like, a dozen cards about minorities and only one 'White Privilege' card," Britta observed.

Jeff's other hand moved to cup her butt over her jeans. "Are we getting out of here? I don't want baked goods. I want to take you back to my place and fuck all night." He raised his eyebrow and smiled.

"Leave! I have to pee. Don't make this suspicious. I'll meet you there." Britta unlocked the door and ushered him out of the bathroom, where he ran into Dean Pelton. Jeff's brain was startled and it took him too long to make up an excuse.

"I...uh...she had a tag sticking up. It's fine now," he stumbled and brushed past the Dean.

"Jeff, wait!" Craig yelped after him, excitedly grabbing his arm, and dropping it quickly when he had Jeff's attention. "I want to talk to you about Greendale. I have some great ideas for the semester. Are you coming to the job fair this week?" The Dean had been thrilled to be included in game night. His life had been totally disrupted by being kidnapped by Chang in the spring. He lost his apartment; 'Moby' had been driving his car when it was seized by the bank, and they didn't believe Craig when he told them he had been captive in a basement at the time. His cell phone had been turned off...after the trial, he'd finally been able to prove that he'd been telling the truth all along. He'd just moved out of the motel and traded up his bike for another Prius. Now he was beginning to feel unstoppable.

When Britta finished in the bathroom and said her goodbyes to the group in the kitchen, Jeff and the Dean were still in conversation. She waved goodbye to both of them, keeping it casual, and drove to Jeff's apartment, where she waited for him in the parking lot. She turned on Antony & the Johnsons and closed her eyes, laying back against the headrest. She and Jeff had spent nearly the entire weekend together in bed, and she was sure Jeff meant it when he said he wanted to fuck all night. Classes started at 9:45 am and there were less than 12 hours left of summer. She couldn't think of anything better to do with that time before school began and she was a slave to Greendale and work and her online class.

* * *

They'd woken up the previous Sunday morning on his couch after a late night up talking. Her neck was achy and her left hip hurt from the weird position they'd fallen asleep in unexpectedly, and she was hot. The weight of Jeff's massive upper body was crushing hers. She pulled his arm off of her and as she tried to slide out from underneath him, he woke up and pulled her back under him. Yawning and rubbing his eyes with one hand, Jeff quickly adjusted his body weight to straddle her legs so she wouldn't be crushed, and nuzzled her neck beneath her ear. She could feel his morning wood against her stomach. "Morning," she whispered. "This is so uncomfortable. How are you hard right now?"

"What are you talking about?" Jeff stopped sucking her earlobe and looked her in the eye. "Oh. That's not you. But we can do something about it. And this couch is totally comfortable. You just hate it because it's leather."

"Well, yeah, but I'm really sore. My butt hurts from sleeping out here. I need a real mattress."

He raised an eyebrow at her, suggestively. "We did have pretty aggressive sex a couple days ago. Recovering?" He ran his thumb over her nipple and moved his mouth back to her neck. Britta felt him getting harder.

"That? Please. I like it rough and that barely qualified," she teased him. Britta slipped her hand over his defined abs into his boxers and cupped his balls, making Jeff bite her earlobe. It'd leave a mark. She wrapped her fingers firmly around his penis and began stroking him as she turned her head to meet his lips, his tongue plunging into her mouth. After a moment, he pulled away but his face remained close so their noses were almost touching.

"I sleep better with you here," he admitted. Even on the couch he'd gotten a better night's sleep than usual, though Britta didn't think about what he was saying until later that morning.

Jeff helped her sit up so he could take her t-shirt off, and slid a throw pillow under her hips. He slid his hands slowly down her body from her nipples to her belly button to the top of her thong, and peeled it down her legs. He kissed her stomach as he cupped her breasts and moved over her again, finally settling between her legs and bringing Britta into another deep kiss. She dug her heels into his butt and waited to feel Jeff press into her. Sometimes boring missionary was fucking amazing, especially when you were still half asleep and not thinking about anything yet. She pushed Jeff's shoulders back and groaned. "Wait! Shit. Condom."

Jeff matched her groan. "I knew it was too good." She felt him pause. "Aren't you on the pill?" he asked.

"Yeah, but it's not 100%," she countered. "And I think we're both happier with 100%."

He climbed off her and darted to the bedroom drawer. "Two seconds. Don't move." As he grabbed a handful of condoms, he privately reminded himself that this was Britta, and she would probably Britta her birth control; it probably was definitely safer to double up on protection with her. He always had with women he slept with anyway. She was laying on her side when he came back into the living room. "I thought I told you not to move?"

"I didn't. And don't tell me what to do." she teased, though privately she meant it. "Let's just go to your bed."

Jeff got back on top of her. "I don't want to wait." He kissed her as he put on the condom. Britta kissed him back- she didn't either. She bent her legs back and felt Jeff slowly enter her, pushing deep inside her. "Rough?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Deeper's better. Number 3…" She moaned softly. He could hear her breath get shorter for a moment. "Deep and…" she moaned again. Jeff knew what she was going to say. He thrust into her with fast, hard, deep strokes, as she sucked his neck (he'd later discover a hickey he had to attempt to explain to Shirley as an allergic reaction to a bug bite). "Oh, god, Jeff...oh, god…" He loved watching her come. It was a completely relaxed part of her he rarely saw any other time. She was either goofy or wound up most of the time. He came right after her and they lay there for a moment, his head buried in her shoulder, as Britta debated in her head if the couch was really so uncomfortable that she wanted to move all 20 feet to the bedroom to sleep or just give up and fall asleep right now. Jeff suddenly stood up and announced he was going to the gym.

"Now? Seriously?" she didn't even try to hide how annoyed she was.

"What? I'm not telling you to leave. Stay. Sleep." He saw the annoyed, progressing to pissed, look on her face. He was learning not to mess with her first thing in the morning. "Come on, Britt, sleep. You won't know I'm gone." He gathered the clothes he'd helped her remove not long ago, and led her to the bedroom, where he changed into his gym clothes. "Back soon."

Britta hadn't really cared that Jeff had gone to the gym, and she was glad for another couple hours of rest in his very comfortable bed, but she couldn't help feeling a little miffed that he came back waxed and with a new haircut. "I actually can't define what's bothering me," she admitted when he got back. "That you would take off for hours or that your body's more waxed than mine is? I think I'm out."

"Oh, come on," he goaded her. "I brought lunch. We can fuel up and I can make it up to you?" He had worried she might be cranky he took so long. While he was waiting for their order, he thought about picking her up some lilies from the flower shop next door, as kind-of a make-up slash last weekend of summer bouquet. But couldn't think of a way to pull it off that wasn't too relationshippy, so decided against it.

"What'd you get?" she debated.

"Quinoa bowls from that new place you like."

Britta acquiesced, getting out of bed to attack the food. Well, she thought, it was good to have a reminder that Jeff is totally egotistical. She was not going to get attached to him this year.

* * *

He did make it up to her…on the kitchen counter, in the shower…she was nearly late for work. She's finally have a couple of days off after tonight. It was a weird night; a lot of her regulars were out of town enjoying a last summer vacation, but the restaurant was still packed with students coming back to town. Unfortunately, the creepy barfly who came in regularly hadn't been deterred by his erroneous idea that Ian Duncan was her boyfriend. He was back and more obnoxious than ever. Britta was thrilled to see Jeff come in a few hours into her shift, as he'd promised, to have dinner at the bar and hang out with her. They'd already planned to go home together.

Jeff walked into Juniper Hill and immediately recognized John from Britta's description of him. The guy was slightly older than Jeff, but otherwise fairly attractive. He kept trying to get Britta's attention and she was not into it, so Jeff was only mildly surprised when she called out to him, "Hey honey." He knew she must have been pushed past her limit with this guy, but it still made him smile.

"Hey…sweetie." Jeff watched her try to hide her wince and it made him smile even bigger.

"Glad you could make it; I know you were working. This is my boyfriend, Jeff. He's a lawyer." She hated herself as she forced the words out.

"They make you work on a holiday?" John asked.

"Yeah, well, client's in London, but I missed you, babe." Of all the nicknames Britta hated…

Shit- Britta couldn't think of any cutesy, gross nicknames. She'd get him back later. She poured him a Macallan and he kissed her across the bar. He could swear she blushed. She moved down the bar to assemble cocktails for another table. Jeff turned to John and asked him, "So, you come here a lot?"

"Oh, every once in awhile. My buddy works here."

Jeff knew this was a lie. He was in here all the time. "Or do you just come in here when Britta's the bartender?"

John laughed nervously. "You're a lucky guy."

"Yeah, I know. She's an amazing woman. And I'm very protective of her. She doesn't like being sexually harassed at work and she doesn't want to cause a scene. She doesn't know we're having this conversation. We could finish this conversation outside, or you could stop hitting on my girlfriend."

"I don't know what you're talking about. She's a good bartender. I think you maybe misunderstood. We're not gonna have any problems." John promised.

"Are you sure?" Jeff demanded. He hadn't anticipated this tonight, and he was fairly proud of how intimidated John was looking. His upper body work was totally paying off.

John nodded, and Jeff moved to take another seat down the bar where he and Britta could talk in private. It wasn't long before John took off, much to the relief of both of them. "Thank you," Britta confided in him. "I'm sorry, I feel totally gross. I know I told you I'd never make up a boyfriend and I have principles against it, but I couldn't take it anymore. I'm sorry I caught you up in it. I guess it was really easy. So, we're even for your Mom now, huh?"

"Yeah," he laughed. "More than even." Britta reached over and picked up another $5 tip. "Nice," Jeff commented. "I see why you don't want to cut back your hours. You're making bank. This is stripper money." Britta had been pulling in some serious cash all night, and it was only a Monday.

"Tell me about it," she said. "Did you notice I have an actual car bumper now, and not a plastic-duct tape fusion thing going on?"

"And now you get why I'm so happy to go back to being a lawyer next week?"

"I'm offended you would compare the two!" she stated, just as a table of drunken frat boys from City College created a loud crash of glass on the floor, and one of them fell out of their seat. She purposefully ignored it.

"Look what I got." He reached into his back pocket and showed her a mailing for a new apartment building in town, offering a month rent-free when you moved in by October 1st. It was a gorgeous modern building, with a media room, laundry and a gym. Perfect for Jeff. "I'm checking it out Thursday."

They went back to Jeff's later that night and unwound on the couch watching more _Archer_ before abandoning it to a make out session that landed them on the floor, and moving to his bedroom (Britta rightfully demanded a sabbatical from couch sex).

* * *

Now as Britta waited in her car, she realized how much time she'd been spending with Jeff this summer. It was a lot, and not sustainable. Good thing they were getting all this out of their system now before school started. Still, she thought, it was nice to have a reliable form of stress relief to fall back on this year. And the sneaking around made it pretty fun. They'd just made it past their first unofficial test with game night, arriving in separate cars and carefully planning what time they'd each arrive. Jeff hit traffic and they accidentally wound up at Trobedie's at the same time, though she was pretty confident no one suspected anything. Shirley did ask her about the bite mark Jeff left on her ear, but bought that it was a curling iron burn. Thank god she couldn't see the bruises on Britta's knee and butt from the shower. They had really taken on some color today.

Jeff lightly tapped at her window and she opened her eyes and shut the car off.

"What the hell were you and Craig talking about?" she grilled him. He had taken forever.

Jeff shook his head. "Greendale stuff. They're still short faculty, and he wanted to talk to me about what I'm doing after I graduate. He thinks I'll make a good teacher. He wouldn't let me leave until I promised I'd drop by the job fair on Wednesday."

"Teach at Greendale? What would you even teach?" she wondered.

"They probably pay you in loose change and cafeteria food….I don't know. Law and English. I'm not going to do it. I'm just going to the job fair to humor him so he'll leave me alone and let me graduate. The last thing I want is for him to accidentally lose my transcripts."

"I can see you as a teacher," Britta admitted. "It can't be that hard. Duncan does it. Everyone liked him."

Jeff shook his head. "My life would really be over. Jeff Winger, almost 40, community college teacher."

"Calm down, you're not almost 40." She laughed. Jeff realized Britta probably didn't know exactly how old he was. He was turning 38 in the fall and getting a little self conscious about it. It felt different than turning 37. 37 felt closer to 30. 38 felt closer to 40, and officially middle aged. He wasn't going to tell her.

"Yeah, I just want to move on and do something else before I'm 40," he said instead.

"You are. You only have a few more months of blow off classes and then you have to be a grown up. You should probably enjoy them," Britta warned him. "Most people don't get that second chance."

He knew she meant the chance to go back to school, but she was leaning against her white car, her blonde hair framing her face and her body illuminated by moonlight. In the moment, he heard a voice in his head tell him this semester was his last chance with her. Jeff leaned in and softly kissed her, wrapping his arms around her hips. He was torn. He didn't just want to fuck her all night; he wanted them to go upstairs and sleep together, and wake up next to each other. In these moments when they were alone, he didn't want to be her fake bar boyfriend, but he didn't know what he wanted to be to her. He was only sure that he didn't want it to be their last semester together, and he didn't want to go back to Greendale tomorrow.

Britta gently broke their kiss. "We should go upstairs…neighbors…"

"Mmm-hmm." Jeff nodded.

* * *

They only got a few hours sleep, making a plan to set the alarm for 7 am (since they both knew they'd hit snooze a million times). Britta would have to go back to her place to change and they'd start their first day at Greendale arriving in separate cars at separate times (Britta 9:15 am, Jeff 9:20 am).

That plan didn't quite work out so well as expected. Britta took longer to get ready than she thought she would. She forgot how long curling her hair took in the morning, and she and Jeff both wound up arriving at Greendale around 9:30 am. They pulled into the parking lot a few spots down from each other and ran into each other as they ran to grab coffee from Shirley's Sandwiches.

"We need to work out a better plan," Jeff noted.

"Yeah, well, I'm working tonight, so don't worry about it now," she whispered.

Shirley let them discretely cut the line for their skim lattes, but pulled them to the side. "I guess you haven't seen the new cafeteria layout, because you two are too quiet." She pointed them to the regular line for food, and they spotted Chang behind the counter wearing a hairnet, serving up scrambled eggs and breakfast potatoes.

"What?!" Jeff exclaimed.

"Yeah, are you serious?" Britta asked. "I thought the school would have a restraining order, or at least Dean Pelton?"

"It's part of his community service," Shirley explained. "He started this morning. The school board thought it'd be a good idea since the school is so strapped for cash. Nevermind they're the ones who keep cutting Greendale's budget. It's a damn shame. We thought this place was insane when it shut down for a blanket fort. No, no, no…. She gave Chang the stink eye. He was totally oblivious.

"I'm sorry Shirley," Britta attempted to console her. "We'll catch up after class in the study room."

Chang's presence at Greendale was almost all they could talk about in their first study session of the semester, though they did manage to decide on a history class to take together. Britta announced that she wanted to organize a voter registration drive on campus with the big Presidential election coming up; apparently Greendale students' had an abysmal 12% voter registration rate. Annie volunteered to help, and thought she could bring Vicky on board. Pierce started to get on her nerves, reminding everyone that the legalization of "Mary Jane" was up for a vote in Colorado, too, until Jeff finally declared the study room a no politics zone. Just once he accidentally called her "Britt" in front of the group, but saved it with a "…TA."

Shirley couldn't help bringing up again how mad she was about having to look at Chang in the cafeteria all day ("the most dangerous place at Greendale…think of how easy it would be for him to poison everyone…I guess that could be good for business at Shirley's Sandwiches…"), Annie reminded them that there were a number of issues on the ballot relating to the School Board and Greendale's budget as well. "A couple of those guys are up for reelection," Annie reminded them. "We should get more involved with the school, and show up at some of their campaign events to remind people of how their policies are hurting Greendale." Annie was clearly getting fired up. Britta imagined the 50-point plan with campaign events calendar Annie would be drawing up tonight.

Everything felt back to normal.

* * *

Britta was home trying to concentrate on reading her first chapter of her new psychology textbook for her Memory Laboratory with Dr. Duncan. It was so strange calling him that in class now that they'd hung out. Her phone buzzed and she saw a text from Jeff: 'Mom's wedding – Sep 29. Denver. I'll get us a hotel room so we can get drunk. You in?'


	8. Special Topics in Sociology

Britta couldn't help falling asleep in the passenger seat on the drive to Denver as she and Jeff headed to his mother's wedding at the end of September. They'd made an early start and as Jeff snuck occasional glances over to watch her dozing, with her head on her shoulder and mouth slightly open, he only wished he'd thought to bring a little blanket for her.

She looked so innocent sleeping. It was almost hard to reconcile this Britta with the Britta who came with him to the charity dinner his law firm bought a table to the previous week. One of his colleagues kept referring to her as "sweetie," and as punishment, Britta dug her nails into Jeff's leg under the table, and to dig in her point, briefly tortured him, moving her hand up even further up his thigh under the tablecloth. "If you're ever let them call me sweetie or sugar again in front of you," she whispered seductively in his ear, "I will crash your car."

Lesson learned; next time he'd correct anyone referring to her as anything other than Britta or Ms. Perry immediately. He wasn't going to disappoint her further and let her know that the firm only bought the table as a tax write-off, not to support Cystic Fibrosis research. Britta was already a little confused and disappointed in some of his new lawyer friends for leaving after the dinner before the live auction started. Jeff lied and told her it was because they had to be in court early the next morning. He wondered if it would make her feel good if he invited her to the next dinner, supporting diabetes something or other, or terrible, because she was sure to find out his colleagues were only going for the purpose of bidding on some golf packages.

It wasn't a large firm, and though Jeff was only working there two (long) days a week, he was getting to know everyone there. At the dinner, his colleague Andy, who Jeff thought had seemed fairly down-to-earth, commented that Britta was a "nice upgrade!"

"What do you mean?" Jeff asked him.

"Second wife?" Andy asked, while implying he knew the answer.

"Britta? No, we're just friends. Good friends." Jeff knew Andy wasn't an idiot, and would get they were friends with benefits; but for Britta's sake, he didn't want to overstate their relationship. He and Andy got into a conversation about Andy's impending third marriage; Andy was shocked Jeff was almost 40 and still a bachelor. The men from the firm, most of whom were on second and third wives (even fourth!), didn't know whether to admire Jeff or what. Jeff, for himself, was surprised. He'd thought of all people, divorce lawyers would be extolling the virtues of not settling down. But ever since that night, he'd started to feel like the odd man out instead of the lucky single guy.

* * *

Jeff pulled into the parking lot of the hotel and nudged Britta awake. She begrudgingly grabbed her backpack and as soon as they made it into the room, she threw her bag on the king-size bed and sought out the coffeemaker. It was a nice one, with little pods and disposable to-go cups. She plugged it in and stood by Jeff in the bathroom, where he was inspecting the free soap, to get filler water. They'd decided earlier to dressed and ready at the hotel, so Britta had packed her dress and make-up. She felt much more awake after the coffee, and even though she was somewhat grossed out by the milk-substitute packets, there was something fun and comforting about hotel room coffeemakers. It reminded her of being on the road after leaving home; of being independent for the first time, because she was finally free of her family.

Jeff hadn't been saying much about the wedding, and Britta wasn't pushing him. They hadn't even gotten to see each other that much since school had started. Between work and classes, they knew without saying it their schedules were packed. Plus, Annie had decided to run for the School Board, and any spare time was spent in the Study Room working on her campaign. Britta was proud of her; there was minimal glitter involved- it was all very adult! Jeff got approved for the new apartment; they'd have to get up early (again) the next day because the study group was helping him move.

Britta commandeered the bathroom to get ready; she just needed help with part of the zipper of her dress that ended and needed to be clasped in a weird place between her shoulder blades. "Hey," she called out to Jeff, as she stepped out into the bedroom area, "can you help me with this?"

Jeff was all ready to go, watching a Broncos game in a slate gray suit and dark purple skinny tie she'd never seen before. He sat there and looked at her for a minute before nodding his head and coming over to her. "What do I need to do?"

"Just this zipper."

"This is a great dress."

It was a short, dark purple lace dress with a cap sleeve. With her blonde hair pulled back into a low bun, Britta looked elegant, and Jeff was pretty sure she wasn't wearing a bra. As he went to adjust her zipper, he confirmed it, and it made him love the dress even more. Leave it to Britta to make the day slightly more bearable.

"Look, pockets!" she demonstrated, happily.

Jeff undid the zipper he had just pulled up and reached inside to cup her breast. "You know, we can find a little time…"

"Geez- careful! I have to return this thing." He zipped her back up. Britta turned around to face him. "Tonight...when I don't care if I mess up my hair. You have no idea how many bobby pins are in here. I don't know how or why some people do their hair like this every day."

Jeff smiled. "You know I'll be looking for the earliest chance to sneak away. We might as well head up and get it over with?"

Britta grabbed her purse and headed after Jeff, as he opened the door. He paused. "Thank you. Not everyone would be on board for this."

"Are you kidding? I've got your back," she said as she squeezed his hand, and they walked to meet Jeff's Mom and Mark in their suite.

* * *

It was only noon, so Britta and Jeff weren't prepared for the scene they found when they entered the Winger-Powell suite. It was full of people drinking and laughing, and Jeff's underage stepsister-to-be immediately pressed plastic tumblers of fireball whiskey into their hands when they walked in. Britta shrugged and chugged, while Jeff skeptically held onto his cup.

Mark spotted Jeff before his mother did. "Hey, Jeff, good to see you again! How was your trip? It was too bad you couldn't make it last night."

"What's going on? I thought we were just going to have lunch and you were going to get married by a justice of the peace?" Jeff asked.

"Yeah, we are. Your Mom wants to get her nails done, so why don't you stay up here while I finish getting ready, and Britta can go with her?" Clearly Mark and his mother had planned this…

Jeff offered for him and Britta to come back later; he didn't want to leave Britta stuck with his Mom and some strangers doing their nails for an hour- so awkward. And what the hell would he do while this weird old man got dressed. He should have invited Pierce instead of Britta- him and Mark could have talked to each other while Jeff played games on his phone. Lucky it was fully charged! Maybe he could still do that!

"Yeah, that sounds nice," Britta said, as she studied her nails. She'd filed them and tried to paint them clear so you couldn't tell they were kinda messed up, but an actual manicure wouldn't hurt. Jeff looked lost. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "Cheer up," she whispered. "There's free booze, you get to move to an awesome new place tomorrow, we have a hotel room tonight. May I remind you there's an emergency bread shortage in Syria?" He managed a little smile as he waved her goodbye.

"There's a game on," Mark said, looking for the remote, after the ladies had left. "You a Broncos fan?"

"Yeah, I guess," Jeff admitted. "You don't mind if we watch? You don't have to get ready?"

"I'm a guy; I'm ready," Mark laughed, turning on the television to the football game. He pulled a square jewelry box tied a ribbon off the table and presented it to Jeff. "Really, though, thought we should have a couple minutes to talk. And this is for you. To thank you for being a witness."

The box was heavy and Jeff recognized the name on it as a nice jeweler in town. "You don't have to do that. It's not a big deal, but thank you." He lifted the lid and found a high-end steel Tag Heuer watch. It wasn't what he was expecting at all, and Jeff was blown away. The watch perfectly matched his style, and was maybe even a little too extravagant. He had no idea how someone he'd met twice could find such a great gift for him, or why he'd spend so much money on it?

"I know you're a grown man," Mark started, "and you don't want a stepfather or someone in your business, I respect that, we're both adults. You know, my kids even call me Mark sometimes- I hate when they do it though." Mark shook his head, distracted. "I just want you to feel like if you ever need anything, you can give me a call." Mark clasped Jeff's shoulder. "I'd be very proud to have you as a son, and I'm very happy we're about to be family." He grabbed the bottle of fireball whiskey. "Can you handle one more before the ceremony?"

Jeff nodded, strangely overwhelmed. "Let's do it."

* * *

Britta showed off her "Thigh High" deep red nail color as she and Jeff drank at their table. Everyone else but them was up and drunk moving to "Just Dance," occasionally gesturing to them to get up and join them. It wasn't a huge wedding, and they were having a good time. So many people around made Jeff a little less self-conscious. Besides Mark's extended family, it was his colleagues and some of Doreen's old neighbors and friends from the hospital. Jeff was surprised she knew so many people; he joked to Britta that he should have looked at the registry instead of getting them a gift certificate; they would have been tipped off to the guest list.

"Your Mom wouldn't let me pay for this; she was being all Mom-like. Is that okay?" Britta asked him.

"Yeah, why? She's happy; let her." Jeff sipped his Scotch and ran his fork through the remnants of his cake. "Mark was pretty okay today...I guess he's growing on me."

"Yeah?" Britta smiled and arched her eyebrow. "Good, I'm glad. He seems nice, like he really likes you."

Jeff shook his head, still puzzled, and it didn't help that he and Britta had been drinking all day. "Why am I mad then?"

Britta licked buttercream off her spoon and turned to him.

"My Mom always made me feel guilty for not wanting to be around more, my real Dad doesn't want to be in my life, and this guy who barely knows me gives me this really thoughtful gift and suddenly makes me feel like I'm missing out on something. I'm fine, I don't feel bad, just mad all of sudden." Jeff finished his Scotch and stared into the glass.

"Come on, get up," Britta encouraged him. "We're the only ones not dancing." She led him to the small dance floor and made him smile with her made up dance moves. Doreen and Mark saw them and waved.

"This is really corny," Jeff complained.

"I know. But no one's gonna find out, " Britta said, persuading him to join her. "Feeling better?"

"A little," he admitted. Not long after they found themselves moving more slowly, on account of the alcohol and the music. The whiskey had hit them and Jeff pulled Britta into his arms for a slow dance, which was more of a sway to the music as they leaned on each other.

"You should call your Dad. That's why you're mad," she murmured into his chest.

"What? Forget I told you that," Jeff said.

"I'm not going to forget about it. Just...think about it. Don't get upset." She didn't know how to bring it up without him getting mad at her; she didn't think it was fair. Suddenly, she got excited. Was he deflecting his anger at his father towards her? Did she just have a psychological insight? She felt sobered up. Britta looked up at Jeff and tripped backwards. Nope, the sobering moment was gone. She laughed.

"What's funny?" he asked.

"I don't remember!" she admitted. He loosened his tie, and she leaned up and kissed him. Jeff leaned in to kiss her back and held her back more closely as they continued to gently sway to the music, subconsciously. She could smell his cologne and was surprised she liked it. It had an earthy, woodsy smell. They both noticed the music. Ella Fitzgerald "Sunday Kind of Love."

"That was a nice wedding," she decided.

"Yeah, it was," Jeff admitted.

"You realize we've almost been married, like, four times?" Britta asked.

"You left me at the altar," he accused her.

"You left _me_ at the altar." She leaned her head against his chest.

After a minute, she heard, "You left _me_." Britta just shook her head. "We should duck out," Jeff suggested, when the song ended.

"Yeah, totally," she agreed.

* * *

They had a slightly harder time walking than dancing up to their room, and Jeff carefully helped her out of the dress that had to be Fabreeze'd and taken back to the mall the next day.

Jeff called the front desk for a wake-up call while Britta got ready for bed. She slid under the sheets to join him, as he yawned, and felt for her hip to hold onto while they talked. It was their first time in bed together in almost a month.

"Would you be mad if I came late to the moving party tomorrow?" she asked him. "So I can catch up on some stuff at home?"

"Just because our friends are helping me with something doesn't mean you have to. Are you doubting my ability to cover for you?"

"No, though now that you bring it up, I don't want it to be weird that I'm not there?" she wondered. "It _will_ be strange not to see your old apartment again."

"Yeah, I didn't think about that. We did christen every room in that place." Now that Jeff realized that, he thought he might actually miss it. "Well, you know my new apartment has a study, so there's one more room to experiment in."

Britta pinched his rib. "If you're lucky."

"Mmm-hmm. Come over more. My bed misses you." It was such a sophomoric thing to say.

"We'll see."

"After work tomorrow?" he invited.

"That's still 2 am, Jeff. I almost fell asleep in class a couple times this month. If I'm up even later...I don't know." She was clearly torn.

"What about lunch?" he suddenly thought.

"No, no more Greendale janitor's closets or in your car...I'm too old for that. It was fun before, but now it's embarrassing." Britta was firm.

"No, dummy, off-campus. At my place, or yours. We don't have to eat at school. We can skip the hot dogs and tacos and, wow, there are a lot of foods that are kind-of metaphors for sex, because I was gonna say meatballs-"

Britta laughed, "You're even more buzzed than I am!"

"Whatever, our school serves cheap meat, and you don't even like it, so let's skip it once in awhile and…"

Britta held her hand against his chest and kissed him. "I could get on board with that." She yawned. "Oh, gawd. Sleep?"

"Sleep."

* * *

Jeff and Britta woke up the next morning with major hangovers. Britta reluctantly rose first, and cursing herself for not hydrating before they went to sleep, grabbed Advils from her bag for her and Jeff. She sat on the side of the bed with a water while she made him take them and drink the whole bottle.

On the ride home, Jeff even broke his no food in the car rule so they could try to keep down some egg sandwiches and coffee. He told the group, when they arrived to help him move, that Britta woke up sick and couldn't help, and didn't feel bad about looking Shirley in the eye to say it, because it was true.

With six people (Ian got roped in), the move only took a few hours. Jeff took everyone out for Mexican to thank them, and got a text from Britta. 'Changed my mind. Up late? Tonight ok?' He tried to discretely hide the screen from Troy, sitting next to him, while he replied enthusiastically.

"Who's that? Everything ok?" Troy asked.

"Yeah, just the landlord. Wanted to make sure the move went well." Jeff lied.

* * *

Britta knocked lightly on Jeff's door. It was late, so she was trying to be discrete. Her phone had died. She forgot to charge it when she got home from Denver. Jeff buzzed her up, so she didn't know why he wasn't right at the door? She knocked a little harder. A door opened next to the one she was knocking on. Shit- did she have the wrong apartment?!

"Britta? What are you doing here so late?" the Dean grilled her, though he looked perfectly happy to see her.

Britta was stunned. Luckily (or not), Jeff finally opened the door. "Do you live here?" Britta asked.

"Yes, of course," Craig answered.

Jeff pulled Britta inside. "We _will_ be talking about this...in the morning."

"That was embarrassing," Britta admitted.

"What the hell is he doing in my building? In my hallway?" Jeff questioned. "He has to be reading my emails again."

"It could be a coincidence. He lost his apartment- this is a new building…" though Britta admitted it was a long shot coincidence. "That kind-of killed the booty call vibe, didn't it?"

"Sorry!" Jeff apologized. "I'm glad you came. I'm sort-of unpacked. You want a drink?"

"I'm good, thanks. Great view." Britta admired the huge windows in the living room and small balcony. Jeff showed her around the place. It wasn't much bigger than his old apartment, though the closets were huge, but there was something great about a place that hadn't been lived-in yet. "Okay, I know this question's weird," Britta started, "but do you think he can hear us if we, you know…because we're not totally quiet."

"Yeah, you're loud."

She looked offended. "You're loud."

"You're _really_ loud. It's okay. It's a compliment." He smirked, as she mockingly punched him.

"Well, whatever. The point is this," Britta gestured between the two of them, "this is not something we want broadcast and he saw something we didn't want him to, so we shouldn't give him more to go on."

"Very quiet sex?" Jeff suggested.

"Well, yeah, and we should talk to him so he keeps this under wraps."

Jeff rolled his eyes. "Of all the things I don't want to talk to him about, our sex life is pretty much at the top of the list. Pretty much number one...I'll talk to him."

"And that door's locked?" Britta half-joked.

Jeff smiled, and walked behind her to turn the deadbolt. "What's the dirtiest quiet sex you can think of?"

* * *

That Tuesday, when Jeff was at his desk at work between clients, he took a deep breath and dialed his father's number. It would be so much easier to send an email or a text, but of course he didn't have that info. Figures William Winger had to make _everything_ more difficult, he thought. And then he didn't even pick-up. Jeff hung up, not knowing what to say. But he called back and left a message on the old school answering machine.

Thursday, when he came into the office, there was a voicemail waiting for him from his father, asking to meet him for a drink.


	9. Genealogical Studies

Jeff made a face as the alarm went off on Britta's bedside table and the announcer on 'Morning Edition' began broadcasting news of an update on Malala Yousafsai. He could never convince her to set the radio to anything other than NPR, as depressing as it could be to start the morning to stories about war and famine. He reached over to hit snooze and pulled her into a spoon, nuzzling into her neck. The apartment was slightly chilly, and Britta was barely awake. She wrapped her fingers around Jeff's hand and pulled his arm closer against her chest for warmth.

It was election day, and Britta was steeling herself for the results to come in that evening. She'd spent the last six weeks giving every spare minute to registering Greendale students to vote, and helping Annie with her campaign. She even cut back some of her work hours. The results were about 100 new Republican voters from Greendale's campus, mostly adult students, and she had gone into a brief funk about it. Jeff cut her off from watching the news beginning the previous weekend when the cable networks started to forecast a Romney win after she started again showing signs of despondency. He made her take a break from canvassing to join Magnitude's Halloween party with the group; he dressed as one of the Magic Mike guys ("No, I don't know which one; _why_ would I see that movie?") and Britta as a penguin. Abed reprised his Batman with Troy as Robin, but this time had a hard time coming out of character after Halloween was over. She was hoping to see him as 'Abed' again tonight.

Jeff had even surprised her the night before with Chinese from their secret place to try to take her mind off it. It was going to be a long day, and she wasn't sure she was ready to face it yet.

Britta turned her head and kissed him, still entwined. "Let's just stay here."

"Okay." He smiled. "You know how dangerous it is to suggest that- I'm never going to say no." They kissed again, and Britta's tongue explored his mouth. Jeff began gently moving his hips against her butt, and wrapped his leg around hers. She could feel his warm erection start to grow up her back, while his hand slid down her stomach into her sleep shorts so his fingers could play with her clit as they kissed. She forgot about voting.

At that moment, the alarm went off again. Jeff pulled away and groaned into her neck. "Can you just unplug it? Please? It's impossible to have sex with you when someone's in your ear talking about Benghazi." It was worse than when they'd been making out during _The Daily Show_ and Britta spontaneously burst out laughing- she'd randomly caught something Jon Stewart had said, and it took some convincing for Jeff to believe it was the TV and not something he'd done. He'd since insisted on a no TV during sex rule.

"I'm turning it off, see?" Britta leaned forward to shut the radio off. "Come on, de-stress me, like you did last night."

"I'm trying," Jeff promised, as he pulled her into another kiss. He slipped his boxers off and grabbed a condom, kissing her shoulder as he put it on. "Nate Silver says it's gonna be a good day, right? With Annie on the School Board, things are gonna be a lot easier at Greendale. We'll be celebrating tonight. And even if by some long shot Romney does win, we'll have pot in Colorado, so it'll be a lot more tolerable." Britta shook her head, but smiled. Jeff kissed her again, and Britta pulled her leg forward so he could guide himself up inside her. "You're so wet...and you smell so good." He inhaled with his nose in her hair, smelling of organic coconut conditioner, as he slid deeper into her. He thrust slowly, and, licking his fingers, drew circles on her clit with them until she orgasmed, moaning lightly into his mouth. Jeff closed his eyes, and thought how great it would be to wake up like this every day. They almost did. He and Britta had started spending more and more time at each others' places in the past few weeks. He thrust faster and buried his head in her neck as he came, kissing her neck one last time as he pulled out and got out of bed. He was careful to avoid the remnants of the previous late night on the floor- the Chinese takeout containers, the tossed aside clothing, the tie they used to alternately blindfold each other, the history books they were supposed to be studying from…

"Can I hit the shower first?" Jeff asked. "I can't be late for work today."

"Mmm-hmm," Britta sighed, contentedly, as she stretched out across the bed.

"See!" he exclaimed, as he playfully grabbed her foot. "This is what you do when you sleep."

She tossed a pillow at him, and pulled the sheets up to cover herself. "Get in the damn shower." As soon as he left the bedroom, she got out of bed and put on a robe, laying out her clothes. Jeff's cell pinged on the bedside table while she was throwing the day's books in her bag, and she looked automatically at the message. She felt nominally guilty after she read it, but she hadn't done it on purpose- it was right there in front of her face. 'Hey bro- grab a drink Sun & watch Broncos game? Let me know! -Will'

* * *

Britta was in the kitchen filling Daniel's water dish when Jeff when he stepped out of the bathroom. His cell was on the counter with a freshly poured mug of coffee. She thought about being coy about the message, but knew she wasn't great at it.

"Hey- you got a text while you were in the shower," she started. "I saw it- by accident."

He looked at her quizzically, trying to think of what or who could be texting him and getting him in trouble.

She took a gulp of coffee and continued nervously, "um, so you met your brother?"

His face fell. "Britta, I'm not even dressed yet. Can we talk about this later?" He had one of her green bath towels wrapped around his waist.

"We're not going to really see each other later- we have the party at Troy and Abed and Annie's to watch the election results."

"There's not even really anything to talk about. I know you're dying to psychoanalyze this, and- fine- I'll let you...sometime...I met my brother and my...Dad...a couple weeks ago for a drink-"

"A couple weeks!" She was startled by the news he'd kept this from her from so long, and cut him off.

"Britta, do you want to hear this or not? I've got to get ready for work."

"Come on- that's not fair. We've seen each other so many times in the last couple of weeks, and I feel like you've been hiding this from me. I don't even know what to say...you don't have to tell me everything, I know, but..."

"Britta, it doesn't matter. Because I met my Dad, and he's a jerk. Super arrogant. I didn't feel a connection at all. And this kid was nice. Like, seemed like a really nice kid. And I don't know- he wants to hang out again, it just feels weird now. I wasn't, like, particularly great to him or anything. He just seems really determined to hang out. I'm running out of excuses already."

She softened a bit, though he could tell she was still upset with him. "Seriously? The same reason you wanted to meet him. You're an important part of his identity. You're his big brother, and he probably never knew about you before, so he's excited. I think it's sweet he's so enthusiastic..what's he like?"

"Brown hair, brown eyes, shorter than me, but he was a football player so he's kinda muscular."

Britta side eyed him. "You know I meant his personality, right?" She finished her coffee and put the mug in the sink. "You should have him over to your apartment for dinner."

"You don't think that's harder than meeting at a bar? At least at a bar we can come up with an excuse to leave. And by 'we' I mean me, not you and I."

"I work at a bar, Jeff- trust me. It gets loud- you should be somewhere you can talk. It's easy to just drink if you go to a bar; he's your brother- you should have a real conversation." She glanced at the time on the microwave. "Crap- I've got to get in the shower. I'll see you tonight?"

He lightly grabbed her arm as she brushed past him on her way into the bathroom. "See you tonight. I'll tell you more later. I promise."

* * *

The celebration of Annie's school board seat win continued into the next day, when Abed and Troy took over the study room for another party for her. The group didn't even pretend to study. Instead, they opened up the party to their classmates (the librarian wasn't thrilled) and Annie immediately got to work mingling. Britta finished her cupcake and said her goodbyes so she could leave for her shift at the bar. "Congratulations Annie- I'm so happy for you."

"Where are you going?" Shirley asked Jeff.

"Bathroom. I'll be right back," he replied.

Jeff followed Britta from a respectable distance, and caught up with her on the steps of Borchert Hall, when he knew they were out of viewing distance. She knew he was catching up to her; it was like they were developing a sixth sense about each other. "Hey, Britt!" She stopped and turned around; he held her elbow. "Have a good night at work."

"Thanks, Jeff." Resisting the urge to look and see if anyone was watching, she leaned in and kissed him goodbye.

"I'm getting a little concerned about the influence you have over me."

"How's that?"

"My brother's coming over Sunday." He watched her light up. "So, if you want to come over, too, that'd be great. You're good with this stuff."

"You need me there?"

"That's a strong…I didn't say that…Don't you have work?"

"Yeah. I'll go," she smiled. "Enjoy the rest of the party."

"Bye." He kissed her again, a little longer, and turned back to the library. She headed to her car feeling a little fluttery.

"Bathroom's the other way."

"Shirley!" Jeff was startled.

Shirley tittered. "Oh my goodness! When!"

"Shirley- don't! You can't," he implored her, as he pulled her to the side of the hallway.

"Jeff, I've known something was happening between you two, but I didn't know it was this deep. I won't say anything if you're not ready, but why not? If it's real, why hide it?"

"We're just friends, Shirley. Friends who...kiss."

"Jeff, do you really think I'm an idiot? I'm Christian, I'm not stupid."

"Fine- friends with benefits. I don't think I have to spell it out for you," he said.

"Come on, Jeff. It looks like a lot more than friends with benefits. You're telling me you don't have feelings for Britta? How long has this been going on?" To her credit, Shirley was at least loudly whispering.

"Why am I even telling you this? We've been hooking up since this summer. We're not boyfriend-girlfriend. Besides, we're not in our 20s, would we even call each other that?" he wondered, seemingly for the first time.

"Um, yes," she stated, obviously.

"Well, it's not that though. We know we're not in a relationship." It was something Jeff had been struggling to define and he wasn't sure it helped that Shirley was calling him out on it. "The point is, Britta and I decided when we started that this was going to be, you know, a casual thing, and I can't ruin that by pressuring her to talk about it and change it, when I don't even know what we want."

"Nonsense! This is just silly, sneaking around and pretending you don't have real feelings for each other."

Jeff looked down and took a moment before saying, "I don't think she wants to talk about this. That's a lot of pressure and we're both under a lot of stress. The point of hooking up was for it not to be stressful. Britta doesn't want to hear I like her, or whatever...we have this unspoken agreement that this is our private...life...it's nice to have a dependable hook-up. I like going to bed with her and I'm sorry if I'm offending your religious sensibility here, but the sex is great. Like, we know we can do things to each other that are pretty... fun. Sorry Shirley! We're kind-of alike. We have our own things we can say to each other. I don't want to ruin it."

"One of these days, you'll realize you're describing a girlfriend. And as your friend, I'd hate for you to risk losing that because you're too scared to risk sharing your real feelings," Shirley said. "As for whatever you do in the privacy of your bedroom, I just hope for your own sake you're being responsible about it. And you never, ever, ever, tell me any of the details. Ever."

"What we have works," Jeff insisted.

"It can be even better."

Jeff shouted down the hallway at her, "You're smiling too much, it's suspicious. You promised."

* * *

Britta hadn't been able to convince Jeff to try cooking that Sunday. "Since when are you such a little homemaker that you're pushing it on me?" he accused her.

"It's just more personal that ordering pizza and wings, for the first time you're having your little brother in your _home_ ," she accused him back.

They had gone out to buy beer for the game and he opened hers for her. "It's guy food; why do you think they market crap food so much during the Super Bowl?"

"You don't even really like football. I'm just saying, it kinda seems like you're trying to be someone you're not really…" she indicated the Heineken he held.

"Maybe I'm just relaxing about it a little," he teased. "Now, I really do have to try to get through those briefings before he gets here." He settled in on the couch and pulled some papers over to read from the coffee table. She sat on the other side and cracked open her psych text. "Ugh, this feels really adult!" he joked.

"I know, I'm actually reading instead of pretending to read!" she remarked.

The time went by quickly, and when the doorbell rang, Jeff looked startled. Britta looked at him to make sure he was ready before going to the door to answer it, while Jeff cleared away the papers.

"Hi, Will? I'm Britta!" she greeted him. She could see a slight resemblance to Jeff- the shape of the face, the hair color?

Will proffered a plain white bakery box. "I'm Will."

Britta realized she had flustered him a bit. "I'm sorry. I'm Jeff's…come inside, he's right here. It's really nice to meet you. Can I take your coat?"

"Thanks. These are for you." Will handed her the box and started to take his jacket off. She was surprised that he had played sports; for a former athlete he was a little gawky.

Britta peeked inside. "These smell so good. You didn't have to bring anything. Where are these from?"

"Oh, I made them. No biggie."

"Really? They look-"

"So it's Will now? No more Willy, Jr?" Jeff asked, as he came over with a beer for his brother, interrupting Britta.

"Hey Jeff!" Will took the beer and gave his brother a big hug. "Right! I realized after we met, I'm the only person letting myself be called that. Well, Dad still calls me that, too, even though I'd asked him to start calling me Will now, but, you know, I'm a grown man, and I hate being a junior, so I'm changing what I can."

"Good for you, man." Jeff clapped him on the back. "What do you eat on your pizza?"

"Everything," Will admitted.

"Great." Jeff stepped into the kitchen with his cell to order.

"So, are you a cook, or…?" Britta asked him.

"Sort-of? I'm mostly a waiter right now. But I'm a pretty good baker. That's what I really like to do. My friend and I had a pop-up at this outdoor fest this summer every weekend, and we've got 500 facebook followers now. My Dad thinks it's lame, but that's a lot."

"Wow- that's huge. That's totally a lot." Britta had no idea if it was or not, though it sounded big. She just hated the idea of this guy being undermined by Jeff's jerk dad. True to his promise, Jeff had told her about their meeting, and how lonely it had been growing up by himself (explaining for the first time his 'appendicitis' scar) and she felt for his brother before she even met him.

"Yeah, well, I think he just hates the idea I do something so girly. I can't even bake in his kitchen unless he's out of town anymore. So I'm trying to save up for my own place, but I can't take on extra gigs unless he's out of town- it's this weird cycle. One of these days soon though."

The doorbell rang. Britta and Jeff looked at each other. "This is _your_ apartment," she reminded him, before answering the door. The Dean stood at the door with a small basket of apples.

"Hi Britta. Jeff's here, right? Oh, you have a guest- I had no idea!" Craig pretended as hard as he could to be surprised, though he was a little taken aback by how handsome he found Will. He never thought a brother of Jeff Winger could compare to the real thing. "I just thought I'd drop by because I was at the Farmer's Market and they had a glut of organic apples they were practically giving away, so I thought I'd share with my neighbor."

"I don't believe you- at all- but thanks." Jeff retorted. "This is my brother Will- Will this is Craig- my neighbor. You've met, goodbye." Jeff ushered Craig out of the apartment.

"You didn't have to do that," Will insisted. "He seemed nice...cute."

"Actually, he's pretty nosy, and he's the Dean of the school we're both in right now, so- not a great time. But he's not such a bad person," Jeff admitted.

They continued to get to know each other, bit by bit, even after Britta left for work.

"I don't want to sound like a jerk for saying this, but I was so mad at him for leaving for such a long time. I guess in some ways I was kinda lucky," Jeff confessed. "I'm sorry you've had to put up with him."

"It's not great, but I'd always wanted a brother. This is still crazy to me," Will admitted. "Your apartment is awesome, you have a beautiful, nice girlfriend, you're a lawyer, you just say what you think- you stood up to our father; no one does that. No one. I want to learn from you."

"You're getting totally carried away. Listen, I know you didn't drink that much, but are you good to get home?" Jeff asked.

"Yeah, I'm good," Will said, as he got up and gave Jeff a goodbye hug. "We should do this again sometime. I know you're really busy, but this was great."

"Yeah, this was great." And the Broncos won, and Britta would be coming back to the apartment in a couple hours. Jeff realized after he said it that he believed it.

* * *

Poor Daniel died right before Thanksgiving, and even though Britta knew it was coming, it hit her hard. She hated the idea of coming home to an empty apartment, especially with the holidays coming. It was that thought more than anything than made her throat get tight and the tears start again, as she curled up on her sofa with her fleece, too drained to put away or give away all the cat stuff in her apartment. She called out from work and blew off her classes, too drained after a sleepless night. When she didn't answer his texts, Jeff got concerned, and stopped by her apartment after school. She knew it was him at the door, and didn't want to answer it.

"Britta! Britta, I hope you're in there- are you okay? I'm just worried about you. Just let me know you're all right and I'll leave," Jeff promised.

"One sec," she called out. She begrudgingly got up and ran to the bathroom, throwing her wildly messy hair into a ponytail and rinsing her mouth out. Britta opened the door, "Hey, what's up."

"Are you sick? What's up? I didn't hear from you, so I got a little worried," Jeff asked, suddenly concerned he was being overzealous.

"I'm all right. Um, Daniel died yesterday, so I had to take him to the vet, and…"

He interrupted her and pulled her into a hug, "Daniel died? I'm so sorry. I wish you said something. I'd have helped. I don't know what you do when that happens- I never really had a pet before- but I'm sorry." He felt her cry into his chest, her back heaving. "Hey, hey…" They stood there for another minute longer, Jeff's lips pressed to her hair, his hands stroking her back. "Do you want to sit down?" He felt her nod, and he led her to the couch, then grabbed a box of Kleenex from the bathroom.

"I'm sorry- I'm fine. I'm just tired." Britta explained, taking a tissue and blowing her nose.

"Does anyone else know?" he asked. She shook her head. "Are you going to get another kitten?"

She shook her head. "Not right now."

He sat next to her and held her hand, and Britta rested her head against his shoulder, trying to stifle her sniffles. Jeff leaned his head against hers. "Do you just want to sit here for awhile?"

"Yeah."

* * *

She didn't go to class the next day either, but was starting to feel better after a shower and a good night's sleep. Jeff came over after work and she made dinner, which they ate on the couch, per usual.

He poured her another glass of wine. "So, no Vegas this year."

"What?"

"You know, the firm Christmas party was in Vegas last year," he reminded her.

"Oh, yeah," she remembered. "I've never been, actually."

"Really- you've been to, like, fifteen countries and not Vegas? It's not far; we could drive there in less than a day." Jeff was surprised.

"That's probably why I never thought about it. Like, I'll get to it, but Amsterdam and Prague were more of a priority. I figure I'll get to it eventually," she ruminated out loud.

"So, no Vegas, but they're doing it in New York. Entertaining some clients at the top of The Standard."

"How do you guys have clients in New York?" Britta wondered. Jeff didn't talk a lot about work when they were together, but when he did, it was sharing some horrible prenup detail, or reasons behind a couple's divorce, or something really odd about the whole business of being a lawyer.

"It's complicated, but these guys...and women...have property in Vail and Aspen, mostly, but Colorado and New York are the worst states in America to get a divorce in. Like, lifetime alimony, basically. And the firm I work for, has some creative solutions."

"The worst states for _guys_ to get a divorce in?" Britta intuited.

"Mostly, yeah." Jeff admitted. "You're really getting off-topic."

"You brought it up," she reminded him.

"Well, yeah, but- I'm asking if you'll come to New York with me for Christmas."

Britta sat there for a moment in surprise.

"You told me a couple months ago you were thinking about going anyway to check it out for grad school? I've got a hotel, you just need a plane ticket. Holidays in the city. It'll be nice."

She took a sip of wine, taking it all in. Jeff thought she was evaluating his offer, but really he had only reminded her that she cancelled her own plans to go to New York because she was postponing grad school. Everything next year was up in the air, and it was a little nerve wracking.

"Plus," Jeff continued, "we usually just hang out together anyway over the holidays, right? It'll be nice to go away for a change. We'll go out and do something Christmas-y instead of just watching shitty TV. It'll be healthier."

She remembered they hadn't even done that last Christmas- that was two years ago when they were still sleeping together. Last year, she was hanging out with Kaho and her husband for a couple days after Greendale started break, but mostly bummed around her apartment. "Yeah, I was thinking about going to New York. You're right. That'd be really nice this year. I can kick in for a hotel- you don't have to do that."

"Don't worry about it- the firm's getting it. For a couple days. But I was thinking about staying through the holidays and doing airbnb. Maybe someplace in Brooklyn? I've never been. We can trade- apartment for showing me around? And then I promise to stand up for you next time someone picks on you for saying bagel wrong."

The idea of spending time alone with Jeff outside of their comfort zones of their apartments was a little scary, but impossible to pass up.


	10. Hospitality and Tourism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preview of final chapter...Britta and Jeff on vacation over the holidays in New York. Celebrate a Merry XMas and growing up (a little). Make some decisions about what they want.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to JKF International Airport. Local time is 4:16 pm and the temperature is 37˚. For your safety and comfort, please remain seated with your seat belt fastened until the Captain turns off the Fasten Seat Belt sign...” 

Britta finished her water and stashed the empty plastic bottle in the seat-back pocket. She was finally over her cold and anxious about getting sick again, desperate enough to google ‘how not to get sick on an airplane.’ The most sane advice was to stay hydrated. Poor Troy and Abed had come down with the flu right before finals, and in between bringing them goldfish crackers and soup, and hauling them in to see Nurse Jackie when they spiked fevers, she caught strep throat. On the bright side, missing a few days of work gave her some more time to study, so she couldn’t be too upset. Though now that the semester was over and she was getting back to New York for the first time in forever, she really needed to focus on some self care and stay healthy. She even brought her own Purell for the first time in her life. It sucked her manager couldn’t give her as much time off as she put in for—Jeff had wanted to stay in New York through New Year’s Eve, but Britta had to be back by the start of the next weekend, the 28th. She’d miss fireworks. It was dumb of her to even consider missing working New Year’s Eve though. She would probably make good money that night. When would she have a “real” job with real hours? Four years? Five? 

“On behalf of Delta Airlines and the entire crew, I’d like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you on board again in the near future. Have a nice stay!”

She turned on her phone and texted Jeff. ‘Just landed. Txt u when I’m in the cab.” Best scenario, Britta figured she could be at the hotel by 6. Jeff’s lawyer client party thing started at 9, so she’d have time to change into her dress and grab something more substantial than the granola bars and coffee she had for lunch. She was able to stuff everything into her carry-on and her backpack; this hotel would have better shampoo than she used at home anyway. 

It definitely did. She’d seen some pictures of The Standard in an article she read about the High Line, but they hadn’t prepared her for actually staying in a hotel this fancy. She’d only done actions against politicians staying in hotels like this (and gotten kicked out). A bellhop escorted her to the room, even though she was given a key at the front desk and she felt ridiculous handing him her backpack. They rode in one of the elevators with two women who were clearly supermodels. It was very uncomfortable. 

Britta knocked on the hotel room door. Jeff opened it, dressed in a dark suit with a dark tie and bare feet. It was kinda sexy, even if a tiny bit of her resented how relaxed he looked leaned against the doorframe. “Hey,” he smiled, grabbing her luggage and letting her step into the room. 

‘This isn’t weird,’ the voice in her head said, as she attempted to reassure herself as she took in the room. It was relatively small by the standard of other cities, but one side of the room was a giant floor-to-ceiling window facing Greenwich Village. 

“This is fucking ridiculous. Why’d they even bother putting a desk in here,” she joked. “Who’s coming here to get work done?” 

Jeff dropped her stuff in the closet. “Funny you should ask.” He slid open the top cabinet of what she thought was the large desk to reveal the slickest looking minibar she’d ever seen. 

“Holy shit.” She couldn’t help herself. It was like a 21+ candy store, with real glassware in various sizes, and sleeves of Oreos, full size bags of fancy chips and designer olives and cherries for martinis and manhattans. And then she saw earrings, make-up, Emergen-C…Jeff motioned to the bourbon. “No, thanks,” she declined. “I’m kinda hungry though? Do you want to get dinner before this thing? I’ll change and we can go somewhere?” she offered.

“Yeah, you want to pick something and I’ll order while you get ready? We have time, it’s just cold out. We only have another day here- we should enjoy it, right?” Jeff handed her the room service menu. She bit her lip, but she wasn’t going to dig her heels in. She hoped the firm was picking up the tab for $25 pasta. 

“Wait- there’s no bathroom door?” she suddenly processed. There wasn’t even a full wall between the bathtub and the bed, or curtains on the window wall. It was a hotel room designed for exhibitionists. Jeff shrugged. “Nope!” Britta protested. 

“I’ve seen you naked.” Jeff parried back. 

“Yeah, but obviously at some point in the next couple of days I’m gonna need to pee, and we’ll never be that close.” 

“Ugh, no! No. There’s…” he didn’t even want to have to explain, so he pointed in the direction of a tiny private toilet separated from the rest of the bathroom. 

“I was seriously ready to leave.” 

“I saw it in your face.” 

“So what have you been up to here? You like it?” she asked. They hadn’t really talked since he called to let her know he got there. 

“Entertaining clients…I’ve got two pre-nups and this kinda big-deal tech guy who wants to try mediation but doesn’t seem to really get what mediation means, but at least it’s non-binding. I want to get in front of a judge again.” 

Jeff stood with his hands open as she dug around for her makeup bag and toothbrush, throwing a pair of jeans on the bed. “What are you doing? This isn’t your apartment!” He opened a drawer and threw her jeans in it. She had been in New York for two hours and he was going to drive her insane. She let out a loud breath through gritted teeth.

“Can you find something to do for ten minutes that’s not this while I get ready for your stupid ego-fest party?” 

Jeff grabbed the room service menu and sat on the edge of the bed, smirking. “You would know stupid parties, tranny queen.” The reference stung; he could be so frustratingly obtuse. 

“Are you gonna put on some socks?” It was all she could come up with while she was preoccupied unpacking and finding her curling iron. He ignored her and called down their dinner order. She wasn’t entirely sure how much she cared about impressing people she didn’t think she’d like, but plugged the curling iron in anyway. 

 

Three hours later, a bouncer stepped aside and they were waved into the separate entrance for the Boom Boom Room by a very young, very blonde hostess. Britta felt like rolling her eyes at the ridiculous strip club name. It was all so stupidly over-the-top and pretentious, and she was a little mad at herself for buying into it. She realized her coat, which kept her perfectly toasty in Colorado, did not at all go with her dress, so rather than stress Jeff out, she sucked it up and went sleeveless for the twenty foot-or-so walk from the hotel lobby. She’d noticed him sneaking glances at her in the elevator down from the room, and it had made her self-conscious. She looked for her reflection in mirrors in the lobby to see what was wrong, but gradually realized this was Jeff’s new way of letting her know she looked good. 

They were told to find the elevator up to the top floor at the end of a short, dark corridor. If Britta could compare it to anything, it would be the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. A mysterious elevator with no buttons, and small screens on each side playing videos of galaxies. It was mesmerizing. Two other couples walked in behind them. Of course, no one watching the videos; the point was to act like none of this fazed you- that this was somewhere you’d been before, and would go again. And somewhere between the ground and eighteenth floors, something clicked. She and Jeff weren’t playing around at being grown-ups, goofing off and enjoying the open bar at a work holiday party. They were grown-ups and this was Jeff’s job now, probably forever. They’d both need a drink to deal with that. 

…to be continued…


	11. Hospitality and Tourism (Final/Full)

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to JKF International Airport. Local time is 4:16 pm and the temperature is 37˚. For your safety and comfort, please remain seated with your seat belt fastened until the Captain turns off the Fasten Seat Belt sign...” 

Britta finished her water and stashed the empty plastic bottle in the seat-back pocket. She was finally over her cold and anxious about getting sick again, desperate enough to google ‘how not to get sick on an airplane.’ The most sane advice was to stay hydrated. Poor Troy and Abed had come down with the flu right before finals, and in between bringing them goldfish crackers and soup, and hauling them in to see Nurse Jackie when they spiked fevers, she caught strep throat. On the bright side, missing a few days of work gave her some more time to study, so she couldn’t be too upset. Though now that the semester was over and she was getting back to New York for the first time in forever, she really needed to focus on some self care and staying healthy. She even brought her own Purell for the first time in her life. Her own three fucking dollars bottle of Purell! It sucked her manager couldn’t give her as much time off as she put in for—Jeff had wanted to stay in New York through New Year’s Eve, but Britta had to be back by the start of the next weekend, the 28th. She’d miss fireworks. It was dumb of her to even consider missing working New Year’s Eve though. She would probably make good money that night. When would she have a “real” job with real hours? Four years? Five? 

“On behalf of Delta Airlines and the entire crew, I’d like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you on board again in the near future. Have a nice stay!”

She turned on her phone and texted Jeff. ‘Just landed. Txt u when I’m in the cab.” Best scenario, Britta figured she could be at the hotel by 6. Jeff’s lawyer client party thing started at 9, so she’d have time to change into her dress and grab something more substantial than the granola bars and coffee she had for lunch. She was able to stuff everything into her carry-on and her backpack; this hotel would have better shampoo than she used at home anyway. 

It definitely did. She’d seen some pictures of The Standard in an article she read about the High Line, but they hadn’t prepared her for actually staying in a hotel this fancy. She’d only done actions against politicians staying in hotels like this (and gotten kicked out). A bellhop escorted her to the room, even though she was given a key at the front desk and she felt ridiculous handing him her backpack. They rode in one of the elevators with two women who were clearly supermodels. It was very uncomfortable. 

Britta knocked on the hotel room door. Before she had the chance to swipe her key, Jeff opened it, dressed in a dark suit with a dark tie and bare feet. It was kinda sexy, even if a tiny bit of her resented how relaxed he looked leaned against the doorframe. “Hey,” he smiled, grabbing her luggage and letting her step into the room. 

‘This isn’t weird,’ the voice in her head said, as she attempted to reassure herself as she took in the room. It was relatively small by the standard of other cities, but one side of the room was a giant floor-to-ceiling window facing Greenwich Village. 

“This is fucking ridiculous. Why’d they even bother putting a desk in here,” she joked. “Who’s coming here to get work done?” 

Jeff dropped her stuff in the closet. “Funny you should ask.” He slid open the top cabinet of what she thought was the large desk to reveal the slickest looking minibar she’d ever seen. 

“Holy shit.” She couldn’t help herself. It was like a 21+ candy store, with real glassware in various sizes, and sleeves of Oreos, full size bags of fancy chips and designer olives and cherries for martinis and manhattans. And then she saw earrings, make-up, condoms, Emergen-C…Jeff motioned to the bourbon. “No, thanks,” she declined. “I’m kinda hungry though? Do you want to get dinner before this thing? I’ll change and we can go somewhere?” she offered.

“Yeah, you want to pick something and I’ll order while you get ready? We have time, it’s just cold out. We only have another day here- we should enjoy it, right?” Jeff handed her the room service menu, his relaxed demeanor and small smile revealing his relish at playing host. She bit her lip, but she wasn’t going to dig her heels in. She hoped the firm was picking up the tab for $25 pasta. 

“Wait- there’s no bathroom door?” she suddenly processed. There wasn’t even a full wall between the bathtub and the bed, or curtains on the window wall. It was a hotel room designed for exhibitionists. Jeff shrugged. “Nope!” Britta protested. 

“I’ve seen you naked.” Jeff parried back. 

“Yeah, but obviously at some point in the next couple of days I’m gonna need to pee, and we’ll never be that close.” 

“Ugh, no! No. There’s…” he didn’t even want to have to explain, so he pointed in the direction of a tiny private toilet separated from the rest of the bathroom. 

“I was seriously ready to leave.” 

“I saw it in your face.” 

“So what have you been up to here? You like New York?” she asked. They hadn’t really talked since he called to let her know he got there. 

“Entertaining clients…working on some pre-nups…I’ve got this kinda big-deal tech guy who wants to try mediation but doesn’t seem to really get what mediation means, but at least it’s non-binding. I want to get in front of a judge again.” 

Jeff stood with his hands open as she dug around for her makeup bag and toothbrush, throwing a pair of jeans on the bed. “What are you doing? This isn’t your apartment!” He opened a drawer and threw her jeans in it. She had been in New York for two hours and he was going to drive her insane. She let out a loud breath through gritted teeth.

“Can you find something to do for ten minutes that’s not this while I get ready for your stupid ego-fest party?” 

Jeff grabbed the room service menu and sat on the edge of the bed, smirking. “You would know stupid parties, tranny queen.” The reference stung; he could be so frustratingly obtuse. 

“Are you gonna put on some socks?” It was all she could come up with while she was preoccupied unpacking and finding her curling iron. He ignored her and called down their dinner order. She wasn’t entirely sure how much she cared about impressing people she didn’t think she’d like, but plugged the curling iron in anyway. 

 

Three hours later, a bouncer stepped aside and they were waved into the separate entrance for the Boom Boom Room by a very young, very blonde hostess. Britta felt like rolling her eyes at the ridiculous strip club name. It was all so stupidly over-the-top and pretentious, and she was a little mad at herself for buying into it. She realized her coat, which kept her perfectly toasty in Colorado, did not at all go with her dress, so rather than stress Jeff out, she sucked it up and went sleeveless for the twenty foot-or-so walk from the hotel lobby. She’d noticed him sneaking glances at her in the elevator down from the room, and it had made her self-conscious. She looked for her reflection in mirrors in the lobby to see what was wrong, but gradually realized this was Jeff’s new way of letting her know she looked good. 

They were told to find the elevator up to the top floor at the end of a short, dark corridor. If Britta could compare it to anything, it would be the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. A mysterious elevator with no buttons, and small screens on each side playing videos of galaxies. It was mesmerizing. Two other couples walked in behind them. Of course, no one watching the videos; the point was to act like none of this fazed you- that this was somewhere you’d been before, and would go again. And somewhere between the ground and eighteenth floors, something clicked. She and Jeff weren’t playing around at being grown-ups, goofing off and enjoying the open bar at a work holiday party. They were grown-ups and this was Jeff’s job now, probably forever. They’d both need a drink to deal with that. 

 

In the impractically low light of the hallway, Jeff struggled to get the hotel key into the narrow slot to open the door to their room. He wanted to believe it was the residual chill from the party, rather than inebriation, making it more difficult. Finally, as the green light flashed and he heard a click, he shoved the door open and nudged Britta inside. 

It had been a magical party. The views from the amber-lit room were spectacular, and he and Britta had spent a long part of the night in conversation with two particularly affable clients and their partners, sipping cocktails in a sunken corner of the room that had a fireplace. Before they left, they couldn’t resist following a group up a hidden flight of stairs behind the circular bar to the open rooftop where they could survey lower Manhattan unimpeded. Britta stayed outside as long as she could stand it in her sleeveless navy silk cocktail dress. The back was an embroidered tulle; it was a Valentino knock-off. While beautiful, it was definitely not warm. She felt a little guilty about needing to leave until she saw Jeff, cozy suit jacket and all, running his hands against his biceps. As they headed back to the stairs, he solidly placed a warm hand against her exposed back and immediately felt how chilly she was. “Britta! Yeah, time to head in.” He always tried to hide his own discomfort, but she was so grateful to be heading inside that she was only fleetingly annoyed this time. Maybe she was just growing used to it. If you’ve ever owned a car and gotten a scratch on the bumper that distresses you, and then after awhile you just stop seeing it because it becomes part of the car and the car still works and you can’t really do anything about it anyway…that was certain parts of Jeff’s personality to her. 

Britta kicked off her shoes and curled up on the bed, pulling all of the fluffy comforter over her, while Jeff headed for the minibar and grabbed a bottle of water. “Man, you know what would be perfect?” Britta mused, “a warm bath…a warm bubble bath.” She gestured to the giant tub, but didn’t get up. 

Jeff ambled over to her side of the bed and glanced over at the tub. “This thing has jets.” Britta raised her eyebrow at him. “You weren’t here,” he teased. She scrunched her face into an “ew.” He threw his suit jacket onto the bed next to Britta and loosened his tie as he made his way into the bathroom. He played around with the buttons for a moment, and Britta heard water whooshing, which made her sit up. 

“I was only half-serious,” she said. 

Jeff grinned and shrugged. “Look,” he said, turning off the lights. He gestured to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the room, and as they were on a high floor of the hotel, Britta could see that in the darkened room the bright lights of the city glowing back at them. It had been impressive when he’d first lay awake mesmerized by the city earlier that week, and he’d been looking forward to showing Britta; her face didn’t disappoint. 

“Okay, I’m awake again.” She rose, and yawned, searching for something. 

“What is it?” Jeff asked. 

“Here we go!” Britta exclaimed, producing a split of Champagne and two highball glasses. She joined him in the bathroom and placed her mini-bar find on the edge of the tub. “Seems like a good time to toast to your graduation. Can you unzip me?” She lifted her hair in a one-hand twist and turned around. She heard Jeff let out a low sigh as he slowly drew the zipper down, pausing at the waist, and slipping a hand inside her dress, around her hip, tugging her ever so slightly closer to him. Britta felt his finger tips on her shoulder blade, and drew in a slightly shaky breath. 

“I don’t see any bubble bath,” he whispered in her ear, making the sensitive spot behind her earlobe tingle. 

“That’s ok,” she whispered back, “just need a sec.” Britta stepped into the enclosed area of the bathroom, while Jeff watched the tub fill and finished getting undressed. He slid into the warm water and immediately relaxed; he didn’t hear Britta open the bathroom door, and was momentarily startled when fully naked, and hair pulled up, she stepped down into the tub to sit across from him and started to work on opening the champagne. It was quiet except for the small splashes Britta made with her elbows as she moved the bottle. Suddenly, the cork flew all the way across the room, over the bed, making them both crack up. 

“Shit…Salud!” Britta toasted, starting to pour. 

Jeff put a hand over the glass. “Let’s not be pretentious,” he said, smiling, gesturing to the room, as he took the bottle from her and took a swig before passing it back. 

“Seriously,” Britta looked into his eyes. “Congratulations. I know how hard you worked to graduate.” She accepted the champagne bottle with one hand and slowly moved towards him, trying not to disturb the water, and slowly, meaningfully, kissed him on the lips while her other hand gently caressed his shoulder. Then she moved back to the other side of the tub where she could soak comfortably and tease him with her toes. “And you got to nail me while you were at it.”

“Mission accomplished,” he responded, sheepishly. 

They sat for a long while, enjoying the view, and casually sharing the champagne. Britta suddenly shook her head and laughed. “Oh, god, what?” Jeff asked, looking pained as she turned to face him. 

“I was just remembering…do you remember a couple years ago when we tried to go away for a weekend…and it turned into the purple pen incident?”

Jeff’s eyes widened. “That was a disaster. Didn’t you break up with me when the group found out we’d been sleeping together?” 

Britta smirked, “That was definitely a disaster, but I didn’t break up with you until the second purple pen incident, when we found all of them in the wall. Sorry. Should have been more specific!” 

Jeff watched her, the moonlight and streetlight mingling to reflect off the milk-white skin of her neck and arms, the hair on the back of her neck already slightly damp. The jets of the hot tub compounded the effect of the water’s buoyancy in bringing her breasts gently bobbing to the surface. It felt romantic and comfortable all at once. After the stress of the semester it was nice to just sit together. Her head fell back and she closed her eyes, exhausted again. “I’m so glad we’re staying at this hotel. The subways in this town are a pain in the ass at night.” 

“Oh, yeah, didn’t you used to live here?”

“What time is it?”

Jeff glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “1:30.”

She lifted her head. “Well, you made it one day without being a douche.” He made fists with his hands and mimed crying, accidentally knocking the remains of the champagne onto the floor in the process. “And that’s our cue,” she said, smiling as she stood and exited the tub. She threw a towel over the spill. “Fuck it, I’m tired. I’ll swig some mouthwash but I’m not taking off my makeup or brushing my teeth.” 

“Is that for my benefit?” he asked.

“Ha!” she laughed, weakly. “I’m scared what my mouth is gonna taste like in the morning.”

“Oh, it definitely always tastes like the last thing you drank. And ass. Like champagne and ass.” 

 

Thank god they weren’t checking out the next morning because they woke up impressively late. Knowing that food from this point on was on their tab, they showered and dressed quickly and hit up a sidewalk cart for coffees and crullers before making their way into the Whitney. They were on their way into Chelsea Market to scrounge for their next meal when Britta got a text from an old friend she knew from her time living in the city. “Oh cool,” she exclaimed, before glancing up at Jeff warily. “I don’t know if you’d be up for this, but I just got invited to this holiday party tonight in the Village.” 

“And the catch is…it’s in a sex dungeon and it’s a benefit for albinos with tourettes and admission is in canned goods?” A woman pushing a 4-year-old in a stroller glared at him. He glared back.

Britta held her chin up. “It’s a squat party and we need to bring an unwrapped toy for children whose parents are incarcerated. Dick.”

He threw his hands up gamely. “Why not?”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking…” 

His brow furrowed. “Really?” 

“Yesss?” 

‘It sounds like a very Britta New York experience, so sure, let’s go buy a toy.” And with that they were off to the Toys R Us in Times Square where Jeff was secretly delighted by the giant animatronic dino and picked out the LEGOs himself. It was unexpectedly fun- he’d never bought a gift for a kid before, unless you counted Troy and Abed, which he was starting to feel it becoming patronizing to do so. He and Britta debated picking them up some souvenirs but realized they’d have to admit they’d been to New York together and after trying out a cover story (they’d each been there for different reasons and ran into each other) decided against it. 

Britta swore they wouldn’t have to stay at the party for more than an hour and even took him to a bar across the street to buy him a whiskey first. It was fun having a girlfriend you could drink with, and not, like, appletini-drink with. She was excited to see her old friends. “I have to say, I know you didn’t plan this, but this is a really nice Christmas present, and I’m not gonna forget it. Cheers.” She clinked her glass against his. 

“How do you know I didn’t plan this?” 

She grinned and sipped her drink. “Just don’t, you know, embarrass me and be all corporate lawyer-y. These people are cool,” she teased. 

Now they were on the steps of an old, dirty-looking apartment building. The vestibule was dark and it made Jeff nervous. There were homeless men sleeping on either side of the doorway. If Britta had any apprehensions, she didn’t show it, which only served to amp up his anxiety. Britta hit the buzzer. No answer. 

“Britta, is this the right address?” 

“Jeff, you know what ‘squat’ means, right?” 

Actually, he’d never thought about it. Of course he’d never had to. She buzzed again and a man with long hair and piercings about Britta’s age opened the door. “We’re here for the benefit?” 

“Oh, great, come in. Did you bring a gift?” Jeff held up the LEGO set. “You can put that over here. Follow me.” He led them down a dark hallway and staircase lit by utility lights on extension cords; he regretted not telling the group they were in New York together because he had a feeling they were about to be murdered and no one would ever find their bodies. He could feel anxious rage building towards Britta for getting them into this. And then suddenly- they stepped into this colorful, warmly decorated basement, lit by Christmas lights and someone was handing him a Solo cup. Before he had a chance to ask what was in it, he saw Britta embracing the person who had given it to them and then drinking out of hers. 

“Is this your friend,” he asked her. 

“Oh, no,” she told him. “Hi,” she introduced herself. “I’m Britta and this is Jeff. Stacey invited me.” 

“Oh, I don’t know her,” the person said, “but thanks for coming.” 

“We’re gonna get started,” someone from the middle of the room said, holding out a plug for an amp. “Anyone?” Someone stepped forward and plugged in a guitar. What followed was a series of folk and punk songs. They couldn’t have been further from “Jingle Bells” or “Silent Night,” but the room felt awash with warmth and Christmas spirit. By the time someone took the mike to say a few words about the injustices of modern day slavery and incarceration, making an open ask for any extra cash folks could spare to help the kids who wouldn’t have their parents for the holidays, Jeff didn’t think twice before reaching for his wallet and pulling out a twenty. Britta was at the makeshift bar getting them another couple of Solo cups when she saw it happening out of the corner of her eye and was touched. She knew she could never mention it, but she’d not soon forget it. When she got back to his side, she handed him his cup and gave his hand a little squeeze.

Britta heard a little gasp behind her, then someone took the Solo cup out of her hand. “Hey!” she said as she turned to find herself in the embrace of one of her oldest friends. “Oh my god, you guys! I’m so happy to see you!” 

“Britta Perry! Grrrrr….you look great!” Justin wrapped her in a bear hug so intense that she was lifted in the air. Her friend Natalie downed the contents of her purloined Solo cup and crushed it against her leg, then embraced Britta, too. 

Britta gestured to Jeff, “Um, hey, so this is my friend Jeff.” He reached his hand out to shake hands with her friends and Justin looked at him a little funny before pulling him into a hug. “This is just so crazy- it’s been such a long time.” 

Natalie pulled her long silver hair into a ponytail and asked “So are you just here for fun?” 

“Kind-of…” Britta abashedly trailed off. “I’m kind-of thinking about moving back. Maybe for grad school.”

“That’s great!” Justin enthused. “Why are you being so coy about it?”

“I just feel like such a sell out! Last time we were together we were protesting together and now…”

“You can do both, genius.” Natalie cut in. 

“Well…”

“Honestly, I wish I’d gone back to school a lot earlier. I feel a lot more informed and connected- you’re gonna meet a lot of amazing, smart people and it’s gonna bring your activism to a new level, if that’s what you want to get out of it.” 

“Wait,” Britta realized. “Are you in grad school?”

“Yeah, I’m getting my PhD in public policy.” Natalie looked over to Justin.

“Leave me alone. I can’t decide- I have two really good offers right now, but one’s a little better funded and I don’t have to give my answer for another month so I’m not thinking about it this week!” 

“Ok,” Britta laughed, a little uneasily. “Maybe we can get our Masters together- I won’t feel so alone!” 

“Oh.” Justin paused. “I got my Masters last year…but don’t worry. You’ll be great. You’re so passionate. That’s what they’re looking for. It’d be great to have you back in the city. Where else are you applying?”

“I…honestly, I’m kinda shocked. I thought you’d think I was selling out trying to get a degree and get a job with health insurance…” Britta admitted. 

Justin laughed. “Honey, do you know how much my rent is? I have a $2,000 a month studio in Greenpoint! Greenpoint! No one can get by without selling out anymore!” 

 

As great as it was catching up with old friends, Britta’s stomach was starting to growl and when she saw Jeff check his watch, she suggested they get some food. He eagerly nodded and they said their goodbyes before making their way back up to the street. 

“Yikes, it’s ten,” Jeff said, checking his watch again. 

“Relax, Winger, it’s not Greendale. You can actually get food besides Domino’s and Del Taco after dark.” She thought for a moment. “Actually, I know a great place around here. I used to live around here.” She smiled. “You want to see my old apartment?”

He smiled back. “Yeah, let’s go.”

It was cold, but they walked fast. In fact, Britta thought they’d walked too fast, that they might have walked past it. They retracted their steps and she looked up to double-check the street signs. “Balls! Motherfucking goddamn NYU trust fund ball sacks!” 

“Whoa, whoa!” 

She gestured to an NYU dorm. “Are you kidding me? They tore down a perfectly nice prewar New York apartment building for this sterile garbage. Ugh!” She blew past him. “Fuck it. Let’s go eat.” 

He followed her around the corner. She was so mad that despite her shorter legs she remained a few steps ahead of him until the process repeated itself a few blocks away. 

“Shit sack goddamnit!” She stopped in front of a Duane Reade. “Are you kidding me? This place was an institution!” She turned sharply to Jeff, who by now was cracking up. “You think this is funny? This is gentrification at its worst!” 

He was overcome with feelings for her. He leaned down and pulled her against his wool coat into a warm hug, kissing her softly on the lips. 

She pulled away. “I’m very upset. You can’t just…do that.” But her voice was less agitated. She crossed her arms. “And ugh, not in public, weirdo.” 

“Sorry. Well, I’m hungry. What’s the plan?” 

She took his hand “I don’t care. Wherever. I was in such a good mood. This is just a real bummer.” 

“Yeah,” Jeff tried to sympathize. He turned his head to the left and to the right. “I get it- I can see a Duane Reade both ways from here.” 

She sighed. “I feel so old.” They started to walk up the street. 

“I’m having a good time.” 

“Good.” She smiled again. She remembered the party and the LEGOs. “I’m glad. And I’m hungry. Let’s find the first place that looks clean and eat.” 

 

A short way away they wound up finding a fantastic little candlelit Chinese place. It was packed, but maybe because it had begun to snow, there was no line and they got seated almost right away. Jeff and Britta ordered way too much but it was all delicious. Soon it was just them and another couple left as Jeff and Britta sipped the last of their wine and dug in to their fortune cookies, adding the inescapable postfix “in bed.” 

“’It’s time for you to explore new interests…in bed.’” Jeff motioned for the check.

Britta laughed. “It is pretty amazing we haven’t had sex yet, but you are buying me dinner first, so…” 

“Well, I like this place.” He cracked open another cookie. “’All your hard work will soon pay off…in bed.’ Truth.” 

The waiter arrived and Britta asked him to wrap up the leftovers. 

“Britta, we’re checking out in the morning, what’re we gonna do with this?”

“I feel bad wasting food. You know what, we don’t have to take it back with us- we can leave it next to a homeless person.” 

“Britta, that’s gross.”

“It’s not gross,” she argued. “We didn’t even eat from these plates. If someone’s hungry they’ll eat it, if they don’t want it, they’ll leave it, but we can try!” 

“Fine, fine.” He had to admit he hadn’t thought of that. He would never have done it if he were alone, but that was one of the great things about being with her. “You know, Abed really wanted to do Die Hard in a restaurant this year for Christmas.”

“Oh, he may have mentioned that…a dozen times…”

“Maybe next year.”

“That’d be nice. Jeff, I’m really glad you invited me here. I always hated being by myself during the holidays and when we first started hanging out it was nice, and I was really going to miss it this year. And I’ve only thought about my dead cat once just now as I’m saying this and remembering why you did it,” she grimaced. 

“Well, you know I like talking about feelings as much as I like being sober, but I’m glad you’re here. With me. I…like you…a lot. You know what’s weird?”

“What?”

“I kinda miss everyone?” 

“Like, from Greendale?”

“Yeah,” Jeff admitted. “Troy, Abed, Annie, Shirley, even Pierce. Never tell him I said that. Part of me is even wondering what Craig is doing for the holidays?” 

“Hmm?” Britta mused. “Still…this has been good for me. It makes me feel better about moving back. Or at least taking the next step. Do you want to stay in Colorado?”

He considered the question before answering. “I always assumed I’d travel more. I loved taking client trips. I’m having a great time here. But I had to go back to Greendale and this is the first time I’ve left in four years.”

“Would you ever think about moving to New York?”

“I just got my license back and finally finished school, and you’re asking me if now I want to bust my ass studying to get licensed in another state?”

Britta leaned in and whispered, “Do you think I forgot you never took the bar the first time?” 

Jeff laughed. “Got me. I would miss you. Okay, that was a lot of feelings talk and I feel dirty. Can we go back to the hotel and have sex now?” 

“Just…pay the check, smart ass.” 

___

Britta didn’t want to know how Jeff got the Brooklyn airbnb, and she couldn’t believe her life this week. They had gone from an incredible New York hotel room to an incredible New York apartment that even had a tiny little outdoor veranda with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge (if you leaned over the railing and turned). She had to keep reminding herself to enjoy it. They’d picked up the keys from a neighbor and began poking around. It wasn’t big, but it was clean, bug and rodent-free and it was in New York City. Britta was enthralled. 

“There’s no toilet paper!” Jeff shouted, perplexed. He moved into the kitchen, opening cabinets. “Who does that? I mean, that’s deliberate…and weird, right?”

“There’s no toilet paper?” she asked, just as confused. He shook his head, then laughed. 

“Why?” he asked, almost to himself. 

“Well, we’re gonna need a couple things anyway, right? And it looked like there was a bodega on the corner. Can this be our trashy movie night? I’ll get some popcorn and beer…and toilet paper,” she laughed. “At least it stopped snowing for a bit.” 

“Maybe coffee, eggs…condoms…Can we trust bodega condoms? I’m seriously asking. Makes me a little nervous buying them in a place with cats crawling over everything and where I can buy corn nuts and generic milk.” 

Britta glared at him. “Yes, you bougie bitch, you can trust bodegas. Um, if you don’t want to use them though…”

“I’m not trying to get out of using condoms-“

“I got an IUD. So, I feel like neither of us is having sex with other people right now…” she glanced at him just to make sure, because though it hadn’t occurred to her before this conversation, it hit her that they’d never had an actual ‘conversation’…”and it’s very effective.”

“Oh,” Jeff, surprised, managed. “When did that happen?”

“I was at the health center for my cold and it was kind-of a spur-of-the-moment thing that made sense.”

“Oh,” Jeff processed, feeling like he should say something more. “Does it hurt?”

“It’s fine. Really,” she assured him. “So, eggnog, too? Or wait for actual Christmas?”

“So last night you had an IUD?” he asked. 

“Yeah, you didn’t feel the string?” 

“No, should I?” he wondered. 

“No, that’s good.” 

“I’m not sleeping with anyone else. I haven’t in a really long time.” There was an uncomfortable silence Jeff was eager to fill. “Don’t they have a Target here?” 

“So help me, if you step foot in a Target in Brooklyn, condoms or no condoms…”

 

While Jeff was out getting supplies, Britta remembered Abed had shown her a clip of Darth Vader burning as a Yule log on YouTube and cued it up on the TV. It felt very domestic. Even more so than her or Jeff’s own apartments. She didn’t want to play house, but it was nice to be away and free of all the drama. 

“It’s snowing again.” Jeff came in and stamped snow off his boots in the entryway. 

“How cold are you?” Britta asked.

“Pretty cold.” Jeff admitted. “The wind’s picking up.” 

“There’s a really good pizza place by the bridge and it’s not that far, but if you want to stay in?”

“I kinda want to stay in with you.”

Britta smiled. “Okay.” She helped him find a place for his wet jacket. “I’m not really hungry yet anyway.” 

“I’m gonna take a shower and warm up.”

“I’m gonna make a blanket fort in front of Darth Vader.” 

Jeff laughed. “That actually sounds great.” He kicked his shoes off and made his way towards the master bathroom. 

 

Snuggled, naked, in the pile of blankets on the living room floor, in the glow of Vader’s pyre, Britta lay on Jeff’s chest and he kissed her forehead. 

“Mmmm,” she sighed. “This turned unexpectedly romantic.” 

Jeff traced his fingertips up and down her bare back and inhaled the scent of her hair, now slightly sweaty. “Good we didn’t go out.”

“Mmmm hmmm,” she concurred. It was all very comfortable. “What are you thinking?”

He kissed her forehead again and moved his hand to cup one of her ass cheeks. 

“Really Winger?”

“I think I wanna get a dog.”

She lay there stunned for 10 seconds. “Are you serious?” 

“Yeah. I…why not? Right?”

“You can be so stubborn, but it’s really satisfying when you admit I’m right.” 

He took his hand off her butt, feigning annoyance. 

“Jeff! Jeff!” she pouted, grabbing his hand and jokingly putting it back where it had been. “I can’t wait to see you with a puppy.” 

“I’m thinking about something else, too.”

“Yeah?” 

“You want some water first?” he asked.

“No, I’m okay,” she assured him. She slid off his chest and moved to his side, resting on her own elbow and pulling a throw pillow from the couch to rest her head on. 

“Would you mind if I fly back with you?”

“What do you mean?” 

“I’ve been thinking- I thought it’d be fun to stay here and be in the city for New Year’s Eve, but I’d rather spend it with you…and the group. So maybe I should fly back early. But I don’t want to freak you out, so if that’s not okay, it’s fine.”

“It’s okay. I’d like that.” Britta smiled. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” 

“It’s been fun sneaking around again, right?”

“Sure,” he agreed.

“What if we didn’t? I don’t know if it’s that fun anymore for me.” He nodded and she continued. “It’s actually kind-of hard.”

“What are you saying?” The memory of their last break-up came bounding back to him. “Do you want to not do this anymore or…”

“I want to tell our friends that we’re…actually, we never totally said what we’re doing?”

“We’re…doing us…they’ll get it.” Jeff proffered. 

“So, you’re onboard with that?” Britta asked. 

“We’ve been in denial. They already know. I’m 99% sure they already know.” Britta looked at him quizzically. “It’s true. Shirley definitely knows, and I just wouldn’t be surprised if the others do, too, and are just being surprisingly tactful.”

“Shirley…damn. Wow. Well, I don’t want to fuck this up by overthinking it. So, I suggest we just keep doing what’s been working for us. Minimal talking about our feelings. A lot of sex. Not a lot of sleep while working like crazy. Oh my god, we’re so boring. I mean, we sound like my parents!” 

“Calm down, crazy, it’s not that bad, I promise.” 

“Ugh.” Britta made a face. 

“For starters, I really care about you.”

Britta softened. “I really care about you, too.”

Jeff swallowed. “I…” Oh, lord, maybe he shouldn’t say this unclothed. He should have the ability to make an easy escape. But he had to get it out. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t. “I love you.” 

Britta leaned over and pulled him into a deep kiss. Jeff had never been so relieved in his life, but he could still hear and feel his heart beating, even after he heard her reply “I love you, too.”


End file.
